It was in the summertime

Really, we met because I felt compelled to rescue him from a disagreeable conversation. After all, it was my parents' house. The Bible Study was over, and people were scattered all around, and he was stuck on the couch at the far end of the huge living room, listening to those two brothers. It was a hostessing thing. I had to rescue him.

We met because I rescued him. We fell in love because we both hate party games, and my parents are irrepressible game organizers. It was the first meeting for the summer. Games were inevitable. So, as all the "high school and college age young adults" began to obediently arrange themselves in the circle of chairs in the entry hall, laughing at my mom's cajoling, keeping their eyes on the ball she was holding ("pass it with your feet around the circle"), my future husband and I knew in one silent glance that what we really wanted was to continue our first meeting outside on the porch. We met because he will listen patiently to anyone. Because he's nice that way. We fell in love because we wanted to take our own interesting conversation away from the party ... and we still do.

Thirty years after that first summer, twenty-eight years into a marriage, this is our love story.