Reminiscing …

It comes with age, maybe?

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

My mom used to reminisce a lot. She’d often tell me stories from different stages of her life and they all sounded so wonderful. Her life sounded fun and worldly and romantic all tied up in a bow. I know it wasn’t like that but how she told the stories made it seem so perfect and I could almost visualize the events.

One story in particular has stayed with me my whole life. And, in my opinion, if there were a romantic meter this story would be ringing its bell. It’s the story of my parents and how they met and married.

As my mom told it, she met my dad when she was 18 and he was 22. They met at a dance held in a church hall. Back when they met in the early 1950’s that was the thing. They’d all go to the dances on a Saturday night.

Anyway my mom was there with her friends and my dad with his. As she tells it he asked her to dance and she said yes. But the rest wasn’t “history” as the phrase goes. They did date for a while but broke up. I’m not certain if it was a distance thing because they lived about an hours drive apart. My mom never told me what happened. But they broke up.

They each carried on with their lives dating others but didn’t cross paths for about 3 years. And one Saturday night at yet another church hall dance they met again. They danced and the rest, as they say, is history. According to my mom they married within 6 months.

I have the original wedding pictures and to me it looked like a fairytale day … my mom wore an incredibly beautiful gown, my dad was all decked out, the car was suitably decorated and everyone was smiling. My dad moved to the town my mom lived in and it was there, my hometown, they built a life together. In my view, definitely a memory worth reminiscing over.

Until the next time.