A True Love Story

Brent and I met in in a singles ward. I know, it’s so original.  I moved into his ward and the first Sunday I was so sick I barely made it to church.  I only went to prayer night out of pure curiosity and because my roommate Cori really didn’t want to go by herself.  Brent introduced himself to me then promptly started to hug another girl and joke he was going to start a rumor that they were dating.  The next week I was feeling much better and saw him before church.  I said hi to him and he walked right past me without saying a word. He claims he didn’t even see me because I’m a foot shorter than him.    Obviously things didn’t go so well the first couple times we met, until that night at prayer night.  He and his roommates were hosting it.  Cori and I showed up on time which meant no one else had gotten there yet so Brent started a friendly conversation with both of us.  At some point while we had been chatting Cori got a phone call and she went outside to take it, then Brent went in for the kill.  Suddenly his hand was on my knee and he was telling me how pretty I was.  Be still my heart, it worked!  I was swooning and could barely make out complete sentences.  Cori came back in and looked like she was totally shocked at the change that had occurred.  Then I remembered, I left an apple crisp in the oven!!  I shot up and told him I had to leave.  I should have invited him over to have some with me but my brain wasn’t functioning correctly.  At this point Cori was standing behind Brent motioning with her hands and trying to whisper something about me getting his number.  I was so panicked that he would turn around and see her I just left.  The next day Cori and I went over to his house and was lucky to catch him at home.  He was there to eat dinner then he was going to head back to the law school.  The first thing he said to me was, “I’m supposed to get your number at 9 o’clock tonight.”  The executive secretary was going to give him a call back at 9…..

He came over to our house the next night for pizza with a few other friends.  He asked me on a date for that Friday and after that we started to see each other every day.  It was right in the middle of his finales and he was leaving in two weeks for an internship in Las Vegas for the summer.  Seriously, the timing was both horrible and wonderful all at the same time.  I’m so glad we met before he left for Las Vegas but little did I know it would require me to use a lot of faith in the upcoming weeks and months.   

I had been engaged a few years earlier to someone else and swore I would date the guy I married a lot longer before I would get engaged again.  The problem is once you know, you know.  I remember a week before Brent left we were coming home from a date and I told him that we could just see where things would go after the summer and that we could take it slow. Ha Ha!  Not a chance.  It was so contradictory to how I really felt.  As soon as I got home I told my other roommate Mel that I was going to marry Brent.  She blurted out, “WHAT!!  But how do you know?”  I just knew.  Knowledge had been placed in my mind and there is no other way to describe it.

Before he moved to Las Vegas, Brent ended up having the guts to tell me he loved me and he intended to marry me regardless of my plan to wait him out.  During the conversation I had never felt such great warmth and peace.  He was telling me what I had already discovered in my heart and the Holy Ghost was reassuring me so I wouldn’t panic in the middle of our long distance relationship.  I do remember falling back on that feeling multiple times during our long distance courtship and engagement.  It would calm me down and help me move forward with our plans (that were moving very quickly I might add).

I won’t go into all the details of our courtship (because they are borderline PG-13), but I will say that after having a previous wedding called off I kind of panicked if Brent and I went longer than two weeks without seeing each other.  Our Bishop, Larry Gelwix, suggested we fix that by making an effort to see each other every other weekend.  He also called Brent and got after him for not helping me feel more secure with the distance between us, it actually helped a lot.  On those weekends Fridays were amazing.  By Sunday I would start crying on and off all day before we had to leave each other.   Brent proposed to me over the 4^th of July weekend after asking my dad for my hand in marriage.  (My dad said Brent could have all of me, not just my hand!)  We were at my home in New Mexico and we hiked up to my favorite spot on the mountain behind my childhood home.  He gave me a necklace called a teekee he got in New Zealand on his mission.  Then he pulled out the ring, told me he loved me and asked me if I would marry him.  It was perfect.  Brent moved back to Utah to start his third year of law school and I started the Occupational Therapy Assistant Program.  We got married on a beautiful fall day in the Bountiful Temple in Utah and had a reception in Salt Lake City at a bed and breakfast next to the capital.  To this day I wouldn’t change a thing, except maybe I would not have had a receiving line during the reception so Brent and I could actually enjoy the reception, as well as the food we didn’t get to taste.  Then we lived happily ever after……..

My severe stubbornness combined with Brent’s intensity and quick temper made for an interesting and explosive first year of marriage.  It was also during this year we discovered how amazing and wonderful being married is.  The combined personality traits of stubbornness and intensity ended up being our saving grace and helped us to push through some very difficult and unexpected times.  Not long after our first year of marriage I lost my older brother.  Brent and I were also in the middle of infertility caused by a lovely thing called polycystic ovarian syndrome.  I won’t go into detail but I will say that one of the side effects is also weight gain…….oh for real!  It's a continuous battle.

Brent’s first professional job was in Las Vegas.  I was determined to be happy with it but after six months I finally came to Brent in tears and told him how unhappy I was and that I COULD NOT imagine staying to raise a family.  Being the loving husband that he is he asked if I could live anywhere, where would I live?  Denver, Colorado, or anywhere in Colorado.  My family used to vacation in Colorado and I fell in love with it.  Nothing could be more perfect.  We actually had a conversation about moving there right after a Saturday night session of our Stake Conference and both of us felt the Spirit prompt us very strongly that we should move to Colorado.  Brent studied for the Colorado Bar for 3 months.  He would go to the library after work and often not come home until 10 p. m.  This made him pretty grumpy.  After passing the Colorado Bar his boss in Las Vegas heard about the potential move and gave Brent a raise.  Three months later he gave him another one.  His boss obviously wanted him to stay and this strategy worked.  Brent came home one day and without talking to me about it he told me he decided we would not be moving. Colorado didn’t pay enough money for him to leave this job and he would not go.  This resulted in the biggest fight we have ever had in our married life.  Soon after we moved to Colorado (happy wife happy life).  The whole time we both felt lead and guided there and to this day I cannot figure out why.  We must have accidentally broke a mirror during our move because we had seven years of bad luck from that moment on.

Many of the experiences we had over those seven years I have shared or I plan to share in more detail in other posts.  Layoffs, pay cuts, unemployment and awful bosses as well as some very difficult behavior from our oldest child that caused our lives to be filled with professionals.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg, I almost needed to be institutionalized, Brent definitely had his moments as well.  Through it all Brent and I have grown closer.  It didn’t tear us apart like it could have but created a love that is deep and binding.  I know for a fact that the closeness we have gained has been a choice that we made to never give up on each other and Heavenly Father nurturing our love.  Not long after I delivered our first baby, Parker, the result of the stretch marks and the dramatic change in my body was upsetting and embarrassing.  I went to go change my cloths in the bathroom and I remember Brent grabbing me by my shoulders, looking me in the eye and softly saying, “I am your husband”.  Those three words said so much to me. That there were no conditions on his love for me.  That he accepted me with his whole heart and that he cherished me.  Years later Brent’s world fell apart and the ground came out from under him. I wanted to make sure he knew that I felt the same way, I am his wife.  No matter what we experience I will love and support him.  I will be there for him in his hour of need.  That is a true love story.  

True love is when both of you put your selfishness aside and put each others needs ahead of your own.  Brent has made changes in himself for the good of our marriage and the good of our family.  It has inspired me to make my own changes.  I believe that one of the reasons marriage and family is so important to Heavenly Father is because it changes you in a way you could not otherwise be changed.  It helps you become more like the Savior in a way that nothing else could.  Marriage is not always a pleasant experience but it can give us the opportunity to try to pattern our lives after the Savior’s life.  There are also often moments of failure and a chance to rely on the Atonement.  Marriage also puts someone in your life that will support and champion you when you need it most.

 There are times I look at Brent when he comes home from work, in a raw moment with the craziness of the kids and the house and I can’t believe how much I love him, how sexy and sweet he is to me.   I feel old and beat up and he is aging gracefully, it is so unfair.  But then he will pull me into his arms, kiss me passionately and tell me how beautiful I am.  Sometimes all I can think is, “He can’t be serious!”  But I’m grateful for the love as I hold back tears (because he teases me when I cry). 

A few weeks ago we were having a conversation about last Christmas and how awful it was.  Then Brent said, “I just always felt like you deserved better.”  My answer is, “How could I get anything better?”  I have a loving, faithful husband who honors and cherishes me, who honors the priesthood and his temple covenants, who leads our family with faith and righteousness.  Even when he felt God couldn’t love him.  He has walked through hell and back and has kept me by his side through every minute of it.  He is the hardest worker I have ever known.  He comes home from work tired and warn out but he hits the ground running to help with the house, the kids and the endless chores.  He make me feel beautiful (even though I think he needs his eyes checked).  I have everything I ever deserved and more.  God knew who I needed and even though life with Brent hasn’t always been easy or perfect, I have been blessed to have a marriage beyond my wildest dreams.  I have had the windows of heaven open upon me and Brent has been a blessing that was poured into my life and it has been almost more than I can receive.