Twenty-one

My wife and I met during a during a community theatre production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.” I was directing this production and as a favor to a friend, she was helping to stage manage. I played the role of R. P. McMurphy a few years earlier.

I didn’t like her much when we first met. Truth is, she didn’t like me much either. She was a nice young lady and I was, well, I was something of “bad boy”, to use someone else’s words. I thought she spent too much time at church and she thought I spent too much time at parties. She was a bit too prim and proper for my taste and I was unkept with long hair and having too many holes in my jeans. We were both right. 

Still, it was a necessary first introduction and we somehow managed to tolerate our differences during the two months we worked together. I am certain she was happy to be on her way following the closing night cast party.

A few years pass before our paths would cross again. 

In December 1990, my grandmother was in town and wanted to go to church. For whatever reasons I was the only member of the family who could take her. As it turned out, we went to the church where Gerrie attended. 

That morning something happened. The pastor said something during his sermon that caught my attention. So much so that I wanted to go back that evening. Something else happened too; Gerrie came up to me following the service and said, “Hello, you may not remember me, but we worked on ‘Cuckoos Nest’ together.” I did remember her. “Hey, are you. Good to see you.” And that was it.

I count God’s ability to put us in the right place, at the right time and with the right mind set, as one His miracles! One that we don’t always understand or give Him credit for. But that Sunday morning was one of those miracles. Setting in a pew beside my grandmother and still feeling the effects of the night before, I was able to listen and hear what was being shared. It caused me to want more. It started a healing in my life. 

But back to this lady.

I went back to church that Sunday evening and then the next Sunday morning and evening and the next and the next and so on. My life was slowly turning in a new, and much better direction. In time, she said something to the Minister of Music and one morning he walks up to me and says, “I here you can sing.” So, I joined the choir. A few weeks later she says something to someone else who walks up to me and says, “We sure would like for you to visit our Sunday School class; we think you’d enjoy it.” So, I joined the class.

February 1991 arrives and the class is planning a weekend getaway in Gatlinburg. I didn’t want to go since I really didn’t know that many people. But I did find out that Gerrie was going. I knew her. So, I signed up. There were so many things to do that weekend and none of them interested me, except maybe going down into town and walking up and down the streets. Same for Gerrie. She didn’t want to go hiking or whatever. Walking up and down the streets sounded good to her too. So, off we go.

At a small table in a little Chinese restaurant, we shared a bowl of soup, a few egg rolls and a pot of tea. And another miracle occurred. We became buddies!

A little more than five months later, I sort of proposed. I say “sort of” because I really didn’t get down on one knee or make any grand preparations to sweep her off her feet. Heck, we weren’t even in the same room, the same house or same part of town. We were talking on the phone and came to the realization that our lives would be incomplete without each other.

Three weeks later, we were married! That was twenty-one years ago.

Later on we honeymooned in Paris.

Every now and then we’ll take a few days and spend time in Gatlinburg. It is still nice to walk up and down the streets, look in the shop windows, watch people and take in the sights. While we’re there we always try to visit to the North China Chinese Restaurant where we’ll share a pot of tea.

Looking back over these years I will sometimes look at Gerrie, thinking she is still a bit too prim and proper. But now, I realize that this is Gerrie being the better of part of us. There are times when she looks at me and sees an unkept man with too many holes in his jeans. But now she considers that as my being adventurous. Whatever it is, who we were, who are are and who we are becoming, I know that it took Gerrie in my life for me to be complete. 

There. Another miracle!