HAPPILY EVER AFTER

I am going to tell you my most favorite story mom used to tell me.  It is my sweetest memory.  This story is how mom met dad at church, of all places.  I don’t remember mom ever being a church person.  Just she met dad there.  Dad certainly wasn’t a church person.

She was barely twenty-three, just coming off a bad break-up.  I remember her telling me how much she loved that guy.  William Henning, was his name.   I think in her own way she loved William until her dying day.  Sometimes when she would tell me how she met dad, her eyes would mist over and her voice would get low, whenever she talked about William.  She never did tell me why her and William broke up, just that they had, and he broke her heart, enough that she had planned on staying single for the rest of her life, and he held a place in her heart even while married to dad.

I’m glad she didn’t decide to stay single.

Mom had a good friend, Heather Anderson.  She had and Heather had been friends since grade school.  Heather was a church gal.  Heather didn’t seem to mind that mom didn’t care about things that had to do with religion.  And mom didn’t seem to mind going to church events whenever Heather invited her. 

The church was having a dance for all the single people in the community. They wanted to create a safe place for single men and women to get together for a fun night of dancing and mingling.  If couples were formed that night, great.  Heather was single herself and thought this dance would be a great place to meet new people.  Heather, being a church gal and all, wasn’t into the bar scene like mom was.  Honestly, I don’t know who mom used to go to the bars with.  She never said.  Just that she went almost every Friday night with friends to dance the night away.  I think she met William while out one Friday night.

The way mom tells the story, Heather had to really talk mom into going to this church dance.  The band was a local band that played at many of the bars in the area, so that was a plus.  It helped that the band was one of mom’s favorite bands.  Believe it or not, it was the Midnight Riders.  You know, those old guys who play for the dance at the county fair every year.  I believe they played at her wedding.  I’m not sure. 

I think Heather bribed mom into going to this dance.  I’m not sure what the bribe was.  Although I was never able to get mom or dad to admit it or Heather to confess, but I think the whole thing might have been a set up. Heather met dad’s best friend at the dance.  Heather and that guy ended up getting married in Vegas that next summer.

But mom and Heather got ready at Heather’s house.  Heather’s house was closer to the church, so they could just walk across the park.  Heather’s mom took a picture of them before they left that night.  I saw that picture one time.  Both had that high eighties hairdo.  I laugh every time I see that picture of them, as I try to imagine how much hairspray it must have taken to get that hair to stay in place.

Mom told me that she was still hurting about William and her breaking up with him when she went to that dance with Heather.  She told me that William had broken her heart good, and she didn’t want to go any place where she would meet a new man.  Deep down she hoped William would come back and everything wrong with their relationship would be fixed.  So it was an amazing thing that Heather was even able to talk mom into going to this dance.

I asked her one time where this William was.  She said he left town a couple days after they broke up and was never seen again.  She never said who broke up with who, but I think she broke up with him.  I mean he did cheat on her with some woman who always hung out at the pool hall.  I do remember hearing stories about a wild woman leaving town with one of the local boys.  I think that might have been who he left with.  I don’t know.  Mom never did tell me the answer to that question, and she took the answer to her grave.

There were a lot of people at this dance.  More than Heather and mom had thought would be there.  Word had spread fast that the local church was providing a safe, alcohol free alternative to meeting people.  Mom says she wanted to leave right away, because there were to many memories there.  Her and William had danced many dances listening to the Midnight Riders, but Heather wouldn’t let her leave without dancing a couple dances.

The way mom tells the story, dad walked right up to her, took her by the hand and led her onto the dance floor without so much as a “May I?”  And she didn’t seem to mind that either, because they danced that entire night.  Somewhere along the way, she talked to him about William and how much he had hurt her.

Dad listened to her talk, and when she had finished talking, he told her.  “That man was a fool to leave you.  I will never hurt you.  You are to precious.”  Those were some very bold words for a man to say to a broken-hearted woman he had just met.  But those words seem to comfort mom enough to give her to give dad a chance, because after that dance, he started seeing her.  Mom tells me that he showed her how a real man treats a woman.  “I soon forgot about William.  You dad knew then how to make me feel better. He never knew how much he helped heal my broken heart.”

A few months after Heather got married, dad proposed to mom.  Dad did it the old fashioned way. He asked grampa if he could marry his daughter. Grampa said as long as they didn’t run off to Vegas like Heather, dad could marry his daughter.  They were married in July of 1985.  I think the marriage was the truest “And they lived happily ever after,” that I have ever seen.