| |
About Heather
|
| |
Well this could be a long complicated story, but maybe I'll find a way to simplify things, I'll start with some links; all of them should open in new pages. |
| |
The University of Oklahoma |
| |
Oklahoma Baptist University |
| |
Phoebus High School |
| |
I graduated from OU on May 12, 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts in French. I'd attended the university for two years, and it was a different experience. I've never been a big sports fan, but I do tend to succumb to to school spirit. Of course, my last year in attendence, it was hard not to succumb; OU stormed its way to the national championship in Miami, Florida.
|
| |
Before I went to OU, I started my college career at OBU. If the secular atmosphere and nature of a public university challenged my faith into growth, the shelter of a prive, christian university nurtured personal relationships. I made many dear friends while I was at OBU. In fact, I met my husband during my freshman year.
|
| |
In late September of 1996, my friends and I went to a local community theater's production of Fiddler on The Roof. There were signs announcing an open casting for the next play, Cyrano de Bergerac. I decided to try out; I reasoned to myself that if nothing else, I could coach the cast on pronunciation of the French liberally sprinkled through the play. I was cast (the director found my "argument" persuasive, I guess. Maybe they were just desperate for warm bodies.) in 5 different roles in the play, earning the distinction of being one of very few (and perhaps only) extra to appear in every single act of the play.
|
| |
John was a senior at a nearby highschool, and one of the teachers at the school who happened to be acquainted with him also was working as one of the crew on Cyrano. She approached him about being an extra in the play, and he agreed, growing a goatee for his role. Sometime during those weeks of rehearsal in October 1996, we met, but I can't remember when. Before long, that handsome 18 year old had caught my eye, and we flirted quietly backstage during rehearsals and through our two weeks of performances.
|
| |
A week after our last performance, the cast and crew came together to "strike" the set (tear it down, recycle all the pieces for future productions). A group of my friends and I had all been looking forward to the opening of the latest Star Trek film the following Friday night (November 22), and I invited him, kind of as a group "date". He couldn't that evening, but he agreed to take me out the next night, and my 19th birthday became our first date.
|
| |
Over the next few months, I found myself thinking of him when we weren't together, looking forward to seeing him again, and even wishing he were with me when my sister and her friends took me out to dinner. We continued to date, and he and his parents even made the trip from home to the Dallas area, where I lived with my family during the long month I was away from school. By Valentine's Day, 1997, we knew we would get married, just not when. We promised we'd marry each other, but since we weren't ready to set a date any time soon, we decided to wait to become formally engaged. We were crazy about each other, as the folks back in Virginia who saw me during those months can tell you, and my family.
|
| |
As the months progressed and summer came (with more visits from John, now without his parents), our "someday" when we would get married drew steadily closer. That fall, John joined me at OBU, and we could be found together nearly every evening. Taco Bell got to know us well; we'd often sit in a booth and play cards together, if we weren't actively trying to convince ourselves to do our homework. One year after our first date, John took me to several restaurants in nearby Oklahoma City he'd been raving about but I hadn't been able to try yet, took me to see "West Side Story", and then in a small little private dining room at an East Indian restarant, over food that set my mouth afire, he proposed marriage, and we were officially engaged. The wedding was set for May 23, 1998. That way, our friends from school could attend without flying back, and his family would be right there; only my family would have to fly in. It was a small wedding, very intimate, very simple, and very beautiful. We honeymooned in Disney World (which, if you know us, almost makes perfect sense. Only Universal studios or a Six Flags could have been more fitting).
|
| |
I'm not sorry that I married him, not sorry we married when we did. I haven't gone overseas yet, though I want to, but once I met him, I couldn't imagine not sharing it with him, so I don't mind. What fun is there is visiting exotic locations if you spend the entire time missing someone, if everything you look at makes you want to talk about it with your loved one, and he's not there? I can't imagine life without him, and I look forward to growing old with him. There's no other man I want to raise children with, nor with whom I want to wake every morning of our lives. Why would I change that?
|
