How I Met My Wife
There’s a popular television program called “How I Met Your Mother” in which the setup is a father telling his children how, (over the course of several TV seasons, I’m sure), he meets the woman who will eventually be their mother. It’s not a show I watch regularly but I have seen a bit of it and people seem to enjoy it. People also seem to enjoy the story of how I met my wife, Susan.
My father was a Methodist minister so I grew up in the church. Even though I wasn’t born there, I consider Brooklyn, New York, as my “hometown” since I lived there through my formative years (8th grade through my first year of college). Brooklyn wasn’t a bad place to grow up – in fact I had a great time and benefited from all that one of the world’s greatest cities had to offer. I had finished one year at Syracuse University when my father announced that he was being appointed to a new church in Yonkers, New York, a suburb north of the city.
On our first Sunday at the new church my dad introduced his family to the congregation. There were seven of us kids, ranging in age from four to nineteen (me!) In fact, my dad had us line up by age, along with my mom. So there we were, standing in front of the congregation, wearing our Sunday best, on display for all to see (and hopefully approve). Unbeknownst to me, there were several teenage girls in the congregation who were especially interested in me and my two younger brothers. They giggled as they “picked us out” for future interest. One of them was named Susan. She was fourteen (that’s right, fourteen!), a tall, attractive redhead, and a high school freshman. She pointed at me and told the other girls, “I’ll take him, the tall one.” After the service she came over and introduced herself. I asked her what grade she was in and when she replied that she was a freshman, I asked, “What college?” I was shocked when she told me that she was a freshman in high school! She certainly didn’t look it!
Susan was going steady with a boy but that didn’t stop us from becoming friends at church.and hanging out at youth group. It was only a matter of a few months before she announced that she had broken up with Richard and we started going “steady” soon after that. We were engaged when she was seventeen and married a month after she turned eighteen. This past August we celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary. As my wife says, “It was just meant to be.”
I just think that good things are bound to happen when you meet in church and commit your lives as a couple to God.