Our Love Story (You have Lori Jones to thank for this LOL)
by Tami Golden Wyant on Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 3:16am
So my friend, Lori Ellis Jones, posted," I want to hear more about you two's story! Seriously...real life true love lasting stories like yours are testimonies worth telling! ;)"
#1 Never ask me to tell a story unless you mean it. <g>
#2 Our story is definitely worth telling...at least I think so.
Dan and I met, athough I cannot exactly recall specifics of this meeting, in Mrs. Tupper's kindergarten class at Elwood Haynes school in Kokomo. By third grade, when we were both in Mrs. Ellison's class, he had become the boy who had to sit on the paddle a lot while I was your basic know-it-all, play by the rules sort of girl. Our paths hardly crossed.
My family moved to Windfall after that school year. I started a whole new 'rural' life here while he was living directly behind the Markland Mall in what is now Kokomo Comics. We were living two very different kinds of lives.
Fast forward three years. Now I am in the 7th grade and he has advanced to 8th grade. This is the age my 'baby' is now. Somehow I thought of myself as a 'grown up'. Clearly, I was mistaken. But that's another story for another day.
My aunt had recently divorced and moved into a house on the corner of E. Virginia and Calumet. Her three daughters were very young, and she was in need of a sitter over spring break while they were out of school. My best friend...was then, is now, Pam (Summers) Gilbody...and I embarked on what was my first real adventure. We were two junior high girls spending a full week in a 'big' town, basically unsupervised, and in fact, expected to be the supervision for my cousins.
So one day Pam and I were out on the porch when this cute blond boy walked down the side street. We were from another town so no one knew us which gave us a little boldness we wouldn't otherwise have had. We called to him, just silly 13 year old girl stuff. He looked at us and smiled and oh my word, I knew him. Danny Wyant.
What had happened to him?!? In three years he had gone from goofy paddle sitter to super cute boy. Oh my gosh, what if he recognized me? How embarrassing! What if he didn't? How disappointing. My heart beats fast now just thinking about it.
He walked by the house again. We watched, of course. As it turned out, there was a clear view from the front porch of my aunt's house to his back yard. We saw him go inside. We knew that was where he lived. Our silly thirteen year old girl minds went into overdrive. My cousins were going to be picked up by their dad and my aunt wouldn't be home til late, so we were going to have a window of opportunity opening. We began plotting our next move.
As fate would have it, my mother had a friend who lived one street over from him. The back of her house was caddycorner to the back of his. Pam and I made our way to Pat's house. From her kitchen window, there was an unobstructed view of Danny and his friend Billy playing basketball behind his house.
I don't know what reason we gave Pat for our visit. Whatever reason it was, it was completely lame, and she completely knew it. At some point, we confessed that we were spying out the boys. Turned out, Pat was also friends with Danny's mom. She knew him and knew him well. And she was willing to help us out.
While we giggled and gushed, Pat opened her back door and hollered across the alley to the boys, asking them if Pam and I could play basketball with them. Without hesitation, they said yes.
Now this is the funny thing, I can remember that day with utter clarity. I was wearing a black pull-over windbreaker I borrowed from dad. I still have it. He was wearing white tennis shoes and a red sweatshirt. He was thin and gangly, more legs than torso. His hair was kind of a mix of 80s Leif Garrett and Shaun Cassity...a little long, a little wild, feathered in the front. He definitely had this cocky walk and self-confidence I hadn't seen in the boys I knew. I say all that, but the truth is, he was probably just like my Aaron, less the 80s hair of course...just a boy, more show than substance.
Let me preface this next paragraph by saying, I was never the girl boys were interested in in junior high. I was plain looking, gapped teeth, thicker than most and slightly abrasive to boot. Plus, I had this really petite, little cute as a button best friend that attracted way more attention than I ever could. So when Danny Wyant showed a definite interest in me, ME, I was both shocked and a little scared. He was certainly out of my league. I was green as green could be, and I had the feeling he wasn't. But there was something so exciting about having a boy genuinely interested in me. (Note: That is also the reason I started talking to my sons very frankly and very openly about all things boy/girl very early and very often. I know puppy love can end up being true love and first love can be forever love.)
When it started getting dark, Danny and Billy walked us back to my aunt's house. Pam went inside. Billy seemed to just disappear. Then we were alone. I had never been alone with a boy. We both mulled around in my aunt's back yard awhile, not wanting to go our separate ways quite yet but knowing our time together was quickly coming to an end. In the moment, it all seemed so grown up. But in reality, I know we were just two awkward little kids muddling through a complicated rite of passage.
I just remember standing face to face, my hands on his shoulders, his loosely on my waist, much like you'd see a couple at a typical junior high dance. There was this long silence, this painfully long time where neither us said a word or made a move. I know it's been 28 years....28 years...but I can still clearly remember breaking through that stillness in my coarse manner and asking, "Are you going to kiss or what?"
I don't know what I would have done if he would have chosen 'or what', but he didn't. He kissed me. My first, "this is really happening", WOW kiss. I don't know that it was capital L love, but it was something. I was over the moon. I like to believe he was too. I know if I asked him about it now, he'd know to say he was.
Anyway, that's how it all started. We had our first official date shortly thereafter. We went to Pro Pizza. It's now Yogi's on the corner North and Washington. We went with an older couple who were friends of his, old enough to drive. My aunt gave me permission to go. My mom never would have.
Over the next few years, we had your typical teenaged relationship. Before I was old enough to drive, my mom would drop me off at his dad and stepmom's house while she went grocery shopping. It was the best hour and a half of my week back then. We spent a lot of time on the phone, but it wasn't like now. There was just one house phone and it had a cord. I'd string that curly Q cord across the kitchen and into the stairwell and close the door. We'd sit there for hours but rarely say a word. We went to a couple dances, although that wasn't really Dan's thing. He gave me this big Avon ring one Valentine's day at a dance. I still have it. I'd go fishing with him, although that wasn't really my thing. I read more than I ever fished. So many memories...so long ago but just like yesterday in my mind.
Oh, don't get me wrong. It wasn't always peaches and cream. There was drama...most of it unnecessary. There were a couple break ups. We made a lot of mistakes. We fussed sometimes and fought sometimes, but in the end, we figured this much out...we belonged together.
I graduated from high school on a Friday night. Got married Saturday afternoon. And moved out of state Sunday morning. Shortly thereafter, we got a congratulations card in the mail...from Mrs. Tupper, our kindergarten teacher.
I don't know what made two eighteen year olds with no jobs to go to and very little money think they could just get married and make a life, but that's what we did. We've made a life. We added children two years later...twin boys, Kyle and Zachary. Now they're twenty and we're beginning to let them go. Our 'baby' is fourteen, and who knows, maybe he's already met the love of his life and just doesn't know it yet. Makes me a little sad...bittersweet this whole motherhood thing. This must be how my mom felt when I first told her about Danny Wyant. But if my boys and their future wives love each other like Dan and I love each other, well, that kind of love is nothing short of life altering...and that's what I wish for them.
Happy Valentine's Day
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