Love Story

Our love story started in the summer of 1986. My parents still lived in the house where I grew up in Arlington, Texas. A new neighbor had moved into the house next door the previous fall. My parents were in their mid-sixties and enjoyed traveling. They always relied on my sister and myself to take care of things when they were on vacation. However, we started hearing how wonderful the new neighbor, ‘Leroy’, was and how he could take care of whatever needed to be done while they were away. I had not met this new neighbor and quite frankly felt that he was invading my territory. I can remember asking my sister, "Who is this guy, and he needs to understand he’s not getting put into the will!" Much to my amazement, when my young daughters were visiting my parents, they met Leroy,and they came home also singing his praises.
One hot July day, my Mom and I were sitting out back at the pool and Leroy was cutting a tree down in his front yard. He had used a ladder and climbed up into the top of this sycamore tree and was using a hand held saw to cut the smaller branches out of the tree. My Mom looked over and asked him if he would like a cold beer (being in Texas we had beer on tap), Leroy answered, "You could twist my arm to have a beer." Mom turned to me and told me to go and take Leroy a beer. Before I could get over to his house with the beer, he had dropped a branch and knocked over the ladder and was stranded up in the top of this tree. I looked up at him and said, "Just what exactly is this beer worth to you?" In the retelling of our tale, Leroy always interjects at this moment that he told me he would marry me if I helped him get down out of the tree. I don’t remember what he said actually.
That Thanksgiving I systematically invited EVERYONE we knew to come and have Thanksgiving Dinner with Leroy and I. I had never felt so much rejection in my whole life. No one would accept my invitation, and if they did they called within a couple of days and backed out! I had cooked enough food for about twenty people. We sat down and had a very nice quiet dinner just the two of us. When we finished eating Leroy excused himself, left the dining room and when he came back had his camera and a vase of yellow roses. My favorite. He wanted me to smell the roses and he was planning to snap a photo of me smelling the roses. I wasn’t in the best mood after being rejected by everyone I knew, and told him I didn’t feel like smelling the roses. About the third time he asked me to smell the roses, at this point through clenched teeth, I looked down in the center of one of the roses and saw a beautiful diamond engagement ring. He knelt down on one knee and asked if I would marry him and live out our lives together. I said YES!!! And suddenly knew why no one would come to Thanksgiving Dinner with us! We left our house and joined friends for an informal engagement party, complete with champagne. We were married the following May.
We blended together our families of one son and three daughters, Michael, Amy, Nichole, and Jennifer. Sadly, we lost our son Michael in an automobile accident that June. We have added a daughter, Stephanie. And our family has grown to include two son-in-laws, Dan and Grant, and one grandchild, Caroline, with another to arrive in May.
We joke with our friends that we have been married for 46 years. Our twenty together, Leroys previous marriage of 18 years and my previous marriage of eight years. We want to put an announcement in the newspaper when we reach 50 years!