About Sara

I've known Sara for just short of 44 years now and have been married to her all but 4 months of that time. Besides the obvious, I'm a male person and she's a female person, there are so many differences in us that it is ever a wonder to me why she has stayed so long with me. Those of you who read this blog and know her understand what I mean. Those of you who don't know her would probably enjoy the experience of getting to know her. I've read of couples who have known each other for years, dated for years, and even lived together for years and, 6 months after they finally get married, they are divorced and apart. I'm not sure what causes that, but I do believe that we had two real advantages. First and foremost, it was Sara and not someone else I married and, secondly, the unique situation we first found ourselves to be in - far away from home and no phone. I first met Sara in late April of 1966. I don't really even remember the first meeting. I was very good friends with a girl from Sanford, NC. We had gone to Louisburg Junior College together for a year. After I joined the Marines in 1965, I was stationed at Camp Lejeune and visited Sanford several weekends to see this girl. She knew Sara. On one of the weekends, we picked up Sara and a couple of other Sanfordites and just drove around. I know this happened, but I really don't remember it. What I do remember is the second time we dropped by Sara's house to pick her up. I was sitting in the front. Sara got into the back seat and leaned over and kissed me! Things like that just didn't happen to me. I was a young Marine and full of myself, but I recognized my limitations, especially in the looks department. Many years later, when asked about the incident, Sara confessed to remembering it like I just told it and said she did it because she thought I was "cute"! Puppies are cute! Four year-old girls at their first dance recital are cute! Even old couples walking hand-in-hand are cute! If she had used that word when she first leaned over and kissed me, I would probably have bristled. Marines are not cute! 44 years later, I'm really glad she thought I was. That was the last weekend I went to Sanford to see the old friend. From then on, it was Sara. Over the next 4 months, I was transferred to a Marine computer complex in downtown Philadelphia, PA. I lived in a barracks on the Navy station. I only made it back to Sanford a couple of times to see her and I spent a week at Carolina Beach, more or less with her. Sara worked that summer as a waitress at the beach and lived in a little hotel a block from the ocean. I took a week of leave to go down and be with her. With my usual good sense of timing, or perhaps it was her mother and father's better sense of timing, I picked the week that her mother, father, brother, and little sister were there too. At least they didn't stay in the same hotel, for all the difference that made! Sometime that week, Sara surprised me again. A letter to me had been forwarded to her by my parents. It was from an old high school friend who mentioned that he'd heard that I was shipping out soon for Viet Nam. As Sara was reading over my shoulder, she said, "We'll just have to get married before you leave." Married!! Here I was still thinking about how best to get her naked as often as possible and she springs the "M" word on me. I was only 21 years old. I hadn't even owned my first car yet and she's talking about getting married. I went back to Philadelphia with that question unresolved, but still thinking about how best to get her naked as often as possible. Late in August, with Sara on the phone in Sanford and me (and Cutty Sark) on the phone in Philly, the decision was made to tie the knot. I told her to let me know where and when and I would be there. The date, that has since gone down in infamy, was to be September 28th. I didn't realize until years later that its not unusual for wedding planning to take a year or more. I guess she just wanted to close the net now that she had her catch in it. Four months without even really going on a date and, 44 years later, I'm beginning to believe that the marriage might last. There is so very much to know about my Sara. She's brave in unexpected ways. I'm not sure she had ever been out of North Carolina before we married, but that didn't slow her down even a little bit. We were married for a couple of months before I could work it out to get an apartment and get her up to Philly. The night I was to meet her at the train station, I borrowed a friend's rarely used car. As luck would have it, it had two flat tires! I finally made it to Penn Station more than an hour late. Over in the far corner of the cavernous waiting room was my bride, patiently waiting behind a small fort built of luggage. There was no panic, no worry, and best of all, no blame for me not being better prepared. Our apartment was on South Broad Street. South Broad is 8 or 10 lanes wide, I don't remember exactly how wide, but she told her mother that we were living right on the highway. It didn't bother her that we couldn't afford a phone and that we had to walk a half block to use one in a hospital lobby (this probably helped us get along better since it was a very small apartment and neither of us could go running home to mother.) She quickly found a job in the biggest department store in Philly and then changed to typing hospital records. Neither job nor location bothered her. I don't know, the knee deep snow might have bothered her a little, but she didn't fuss about that either. She just bought a pair of boots and kept going. Growing a bit older and wiser didn't slow her down even a little when it came to trying things. She can't swim, but wasn't the least bit worried about going whitewater rafting. She can't fly either, but when we went hot-air ballooning, it was Sara leaning over the basket sides trying to see everything and me holding on for dear life and standing as close to the middle of the basket as possible. In the Bahamas, we rented motor scooters. She went off and left me on hers. It wouldn't go fast enough to please her. The one thing that I know she won 't do is to ride double with me. That's another story from the past and you can ask her about it if you see her. She will travel at the drop of a hat and, I don't care if she can't speak a word of a foreign language, she understands "go" in almost any language. My Sara is so very smart (you have to get past the fact that she married me before you can really buy into that.) After high school, she went to work in a factory. 15 minutes later, she decided that she probably wasn't cut out for factory life and decided to further her education. When I met her, she was attending a community college. Since she got married and moved, she wasn't able to finish then. Two kids later, while keeping a home and working a job and a half and getting darned little help from me, she finished her associate degree in accounting. Many years later, after the children had become adults, she went back to college at nights, still holding down a full time job, and earned a bachelors degree. She wanted to explore becoming a travel agent about the same time we came into a little bit of unexpected money. She went on to a travel agents' school and, at one time in the past, knew all of the ins and outs and tricks to booking the best travel deals. She has taken computer courses, photography courses, and went to school to learn how to weave using a hand loom. We now own a one-of-a-kind original "Sara" rug. If she wants to learn, don't get in her way. Sara has a work ethic that I can't match and really don't want to. She has always gone in to work early and stayed late. She works harder for self-perfection and to make things run right than almost anyone I know. She is unbelievably organized. If I were to need an assistant, I would hire her in a minute, but I wouldn't be able to work with her very well. She would have expectations of me that I probably just couldn't reach and I wouldn't want to disappoint her. How big can her heart be? An old childhood and lifelong friend of mine comes to stay with us for four months, in the summer, every year and has for about 15 years now. Ron was a last minute stand-in as a groom's man at our wedding. While in the service, he had an accident that left him partially paralyzed and on military disability. He hasn't done a day's work since. He is a world-class slob. She loves him like a brother and treats him just like one of the family. She fusses at him when he doesn't do something he should or when he does something that he shouldn't. She absolutely won't put up with any of his "I can't do that. I'm handicapped." crap either. Ron wears contact lenses. Several years ago, he was complaining about not being able to wear them and how much he would like to do so. He thought he wouldn't be able to put them in and take them out. She pushed and pulled and nudged and scolded him to go to the eye doctor until he finally did it. Now he hardly ever wears glasses. I love her even more for loving him. My Sara is human. She cries sometimes when she is sad or feels bad. She has been known to grumble when things don't go right. She hates for any WFU Deacons team to loose. She doesn't appreciate the art of baseball. Rarely does she hit a golf ball that gets into the air. I don't think she's ever done a vindictive thing in her life, but she can talk a good game. She forgets to use her turn signal sometimes. With that said, I still see so very much of Christ in her. She holds me and comforts me when I am sick in body or mind or spirit. She encourages me to look after myself, but she does her very best to look after me when I can't or won't. She has dropped everything to rescue me when I absolutely had to be rescued and couldn't help myself. She has raised children and is helping to raise grandchildren who love her and love to be with her. On my 65th birthday, she gave me a card in which she had written, "I will love you forever." I don't know how long forever is, but I know that I'll love her forever plus a day. My hope and prayer is that I will not fail too badly in being lovable and that I will not fail in letting her know often how very much she is loved.