Runaway Bride

Today is my wedding anniversary! My husband, Dale, and I have been married for 37 years! The reality of it is quite amazing for a girl who almost bolted and fled the scene! 



When Julia Roberts escaped her impending weddings in the movie, “Runaway Bride,” she truly believed she had found true love right up until the actual commitment ceremony. I didn’t go that far, but I came closer than anyone could have imagined. Four days prior to our wedding I began to reflect on the seriousness of my decision. Suddenly it all seemed so extremely permanent. We were talking about forever! Did I love this man enough for ever after? In my confusion, I found myself in my mother’s dressing room heaped on her floor, reduced to tears and pouring out my fears. I didn’t want to get married! I was too young! I was barely 21. What if I was making a mistake? Lovingly, my mother listened as I wept uncontrollably, spilling out my irrational fears and concerns. I wanted to graduate from college. What if I accidently got pregnant and couldn’t finish? It was a Thursday night and the following Monday morning was to be my Wedding Day. Invitations had been sent, bridesmaid dresses had been made, and money had been spent on the reception. My wedding dress hung in the closet, lovingly stitched by my mother. Before me flashed my non refundable wedding. 



Yet in spite of all the preparation and money involved, my mother wisely said, “You don’t have to marry anybody you don’t want to. The money doesn’t matter. Pray about it and talk to Dale and if you want to cancel the wedding we will.” Reassured, I followed the wisdom that graced my mother’s lips. She showed no signs of panic or stress. There was only love and understanding in her eyes. 



The next night Dale came down and we talked about my fears for the future and how marriage and children would somehow keep me from following my dreams. Dale listened while I cried and talked and then suddenly none of it mattered anymore. This was the man I was supposed to marry . . . the one who would love me unconditionally and care for me. Happily we parted for the night. All at once I couldn’t wait to get married! I didn’t want to run away anymore.



Our actual wedding day was truly memorable, a never to be forgotten daze of events, ones we still laugh about today! 



My morning began with a scramble to get dressed, after my alarm clock failed to go off on time. I wouldn’t have considered having my hair professionally styled back then, having experienced a bad salon up-do in the seventh grade for my sister Vicki’s wedding. So I rolled up my hair with electric steamrollers, grabbed my make-up bag, and put myself together during the car ride to Salt Lake. My parents and I blew in with little time to spare, my hair straighter than I’d hoped for, just as Dale and his parents arrived. I don’t remember the specific details of our ceremony or the profound words of advice we received. I only remember being with Dale and the joy I felt with my hands in his. We loved each other and we were going to be together forever. Suddenly it didn’t seem long enough.

Our marriage literally began on shaky ground, following the beautiful wedding breakfast Dale’s parents provided. Dale began to feel nauseated, shaky and pale, an unfortunate recipient of food poisoning, more than likely caused by contaminated Cornish game hens served at the breakfast. After too many well-intentioned home remedies from everybody’s mother and their dog, he spent most of our wedding reception throwing up in the restroom. We have endured years of family jokes about who really deserves to celebrate our anniversary, as his brother, Leon, and my brother-in-law, Richard, were substitute grooms throughout the evening.

Our reception was held at the Alpine Country Club, where I was a waitress, working my way through college. After I returned to my employment, I discovered my coworkers were still unsure about which of the three grooms I had married. Humorously, they asked in confidential whispers, if my new husband just had a case of wedding nerves and shyness! 



There is no one I’d rather be with or talk with other than Dale. I am sure that he was hand picked for me in the life before this, because I was much too self centered and immature to have picked such a winner. When I was younger someone told me that you can always tell what kind of husband a man will be by how he treats his mother. As a teenager I didn’t fully comprehend and appreciate that quiet quality in Dale. As his wife, I am grateful everyday of my life. Like Julia Roberts said in Runaway Bride, “I guarantee there'll be tough times. I guarantee that at some point, one or both of us is going to want get out. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life. Because I know in my heart you're the only one for me!”

Friends Are Family You Choose

There is an old idiom that says, “Birds of a feather flock together,” meaning that people who are a lot alike tend to become friends. We grow up as part of a family and no matter what kinds of relationships existed there, ultimately our family structure becomes the yardstick wherein we measure our lives, consciously or unconsciously. If we are nurtured and loved, we are able to spread our wings and fly away like baby birds leaving the nest, independent of our parents. In the best of scenarios our family members can also become our life long friends. However the friends we choose along life’s path can also become our family. Friends are family you choose for yourself!

Recently I got a call from a former high school classmate informing me of our approaching fortieth class reunion. I was asked to go to the newly created class reunion website, to sign-in with an updated picture and profile of what I’d been doing, since way back when. After I recovered from the realization that forty whole years had passed since those carefree days, I checked out the website, mostly out of curiosity. I took a quiz to find out how much I remembered and was pleasantly surprised how the memories came flooding back. I hadn’t really thought about my high school days in years. I read a few profiles, halfheartedly looking for a long lost friend or two, and then submitted my own updated profile, signing the guest-book. To my surprise, three friends I grew up with contacted me to say, hello!

My friend, Colleen, was a pleasant surprise, one I’d not been expecting. Colleen’s family had moved away before our senior year and she was unable to graduate with us. We had all gathered after graduation for a senior trip to my parent’s Bear Lake cabin, but other than that we had completely lost track of one another. Now our periodic emails have become cherished moments of formerly lost or misplaced memories. They have also brought new discoveries as both of us have realized just how much we have in common. Our lives have taken different paths, with different challenges, yet each journey has discovered similar truths. We share similar values and similar joys, sharing a love of literature and the written word.

I find myself wondering why Colleen and I were not better friends as children, when we obviously share so many interests? Interestingly we lived one street apart from each other, and as children often do, we played only with those friends on our individual streets. Now I have discovered my long ago friend again and that discovery has enriched my life like a new sibling introduced into my family!

I had a misconception as a teenager that girlfriends could not be trusted confidants, consequently preferring boyfriends most of the time. I was careful with the secrets and inner thoughts I shared with my girlfriends, having somehow concluded that girls tended to betray your trust, especially when boys were involved. Girls could be kind to your face, turning a jealous eye when you weren't looking, or so I misjudged, perhaps missing out on relationships that may have enriched my life back then.

I love this quote I’ve kept over the years by an unknown author: “I believe in angels, the kind Heaven sends. I am surrounded by angels, but I call them my best friends.” 
Friends have come and gone out of my life. Some remain “forever friends,” even though distance makes them impossible to see. I have discovered that when we truly care about people it doesn’t matter how often we can physically see them, because we are always encircled in that love we’ve shared, and when we are reunited again, it is like old times!

Friends are family too. We can discover them within our neighborhoods, work places, religious association, or in our communities. They are like quiet angels who sit on our shoulders, lifting our wings, when we forget how to fly. Like this unknown author said, “The best part of life is when your family becomes your friends, and your friends become your family.” ~ Danica Whitfield

A REASON, A SEASON, A LIFETIME
By Brian Andrew “Drew” Chalker



People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do!



When someone is in your life for a REASON . . . It is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are! They are there for the reason you need them to be.



Then, without any wrongdoing on your part, or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.



What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered. And now it is time to move on.



When people come into your life for a SEASON . . . It is usually because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They bring you an experience of peace, or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real. But only for a season.



LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person, and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant. 



People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do!

It’s My Party, I’ll Cry If I Want To!

When I was in junior high school my friends and I often had slumber parties at each other’s houses. I remember being at my friend Judy’s house where we played records on her little RCA 45 rpm record player. Lesley Gore was popular on the radio and we played her #1 hit song, “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To,” over and over again. We sang and danced and called the radio station, dedicating the favorite song to secret friends. What girl power that was, singing, “I’ll cry if I want to!”

There are happy tears and sad tears and both are needed to heal our souls. As children we are often taught to hide our emotions. “It’s okay. Don’t cry! Everything will be all right. Be a nice girl (or boy).” We learn to bury our emotions and stuff them inside, to put on a happy face. Then we go to a sad movie and our tears come spilling out, healing our spirits, sometimes leaving us unaware of their original emotional origin.

Recently my cousin, Bonnie, and I were talking about our favorite kinds of movies. We realized we are both forever more Doris Day, “Happily Ever After” kind of girls! Just give me a little “feel good” romantic Hallmark movie with a sappy ending anytime! Don’t misunderstand. I can get into an occasional Hulk or Batman movie, but where are the happy endings people? I need my happy ending fix, where boy gets girl!

Remember the really old movies, where we breathlessly awaited the romantic build up to the big kiss at the end? Then there were the classic tear-jerker, romantic movies that left us crying uncontrollably. I can still hear the heart wrenching sobs coming from deep within my throat at the end of Gone With the Wind and my all time favorite movie, West Side Story. I was a young girl, far from any romantic experience, but I wanted to be Natalie Wood, wearing a pastel purple nightgown, singing love songs on my balcony! While I was watching the movie I was aware of the audience around me, listening to their uncontrolled tears as well. There was not a dry eye in sight. Now that was a joyful day at the movies! It makes me want to cry tears of joy just thinking about it!

There is a memorable speech about emotions and the tears we cry in the classic 1963 movie, “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.” Following the death of his wife Helen, Tom Corbett (played by Glenn Ford) needs to adjust to a new bachelor life with his young son Eddie. The role of little Eddie is played by Ronny Howard, now famous producer and director. The comedy is absolutely hysterical and little Eddie steals the show! One woman already in the lives of Tom and Eddie is Elizabeth Marten, a volunteer nurse, divorcée and Helen's best friend who lives next door (played by Shirley Jones). Tom and Elizabeth like each other as friends, as do Eddie and Elizabeth, but Tom and Elizabeth are constantly bickering and place walls up between each other in developing anything more serious.

There is a scene in the movie that begins with Eddie screaming at the top of his lungs upon the discovery of a dead fish in his fish tank. His father rushes into his room, with Elizabeth following. Tom quickly disposes of the fish and tries to calm young Eddie. “What did you do with HIM Dad?” Eddie cries. “It wasn’t a HIM, it was an IT and I flushed IT down the drain Eddie,” his father screams.

Attentively, Elizabeth begins taking Eddie’s pulse, trying to comfort him by saying, “You were thinking of your mother weren’t you Eddie. Weren’t you Eddie?” Afterward Tom and Elizabeth argue.

Tom: “A fish is a fish, and his mother’s his mother!”
Elizabeth: “That isn’t the point!”
Tom: “He doesn’t even care about those dam fish! I have to tell him to feed them half the time!”
Elizabeth: “He needed to cry Tom.”
Tom: “Well let him cry according to the size of things!”
Elizabeth: “It doesn’t work that way.”
Tom: “Well I don’t agree. Look, if your sad, you cry. You don’t save up your tears and go to a sad movie do you?”
Elizabeth: “We do! We all do! Where do you think we get the tears we cry in a movie?”

Tom: “Tears for a mother cannot be the same as tears for a fish!”

Tears for a dead fish CAN come to the surface unexpectedly because of the death of a loved one. It’s an emotional healing release we all need, and often we are not even aware of it.

Several years ago my 80-year-old mother went to the movie, “Finding Neverland,” about the life of J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. Mom went with my sister, Vicki and some of her great grandchildren. At that time it had been almost twenty years since my sister, Judy, had died at the age of 40. Suddenly, without warning, the movie brought tender feelings to the surface, as each woman remembered how Judy had played the lead role of Peter Pan in high school. As they left the movie theater my mother turned her face away from the younger children, not wanting to explain. “What’s wrong with Grandma Shirley?” Vicki’s grandchildren asked. “She’s missing her daughter,” Vicki said as her own eyes filled with tears. Sometimes we all need to cry! We save up our tears and then suddenly release them in a sad movie. It’s our party, so lets cry if we want to!