Meeting Cheryl
It was about 8:00 p.m. on a Friday night, and I was waiting tables at Pargos restaurant in the Rivergate Mall area, in Tennessee.
We had heard that the Longhorn Steakhouse trainers might be coming by…and that they were the “best of the best” when it came to service.
As you could imagine, our managers had us on high alert and we were all a little intimidated by their reputation.
When their team entered the building you could hear a pin drop…we all took notice.
The girls from Longhorn spent about an hour at the bar, and then seemed to be heading to the door; and they did not look happy.
I took it upon myself to see what was up…and their team leader informed me that their party had been passed up twice in seating rotation; they had been waiting for an hour for a table, and that they were leaving. I talked them into staying.
I had that large table that was passed in rotation, and sat them myself while promising to make it up to them if they stayed.
I could have never known that in doing so, my life would change forever. There was a thin, dark, and fantastically beautiful brunette in the group that immediately caught my eye, and I tried not to be obvious about my attention.
After getting their drink order I went into the wait station to ring up their choices; and was a little scuffed because the aforementioned brunette would have nothing to do with me. She would not speak to me at all and even had her friend tell me her drink order.
I was off-balance and a little intrigued! At that moment, there in the wait station, I had an experience that was unexpected and very intense…I began to tremble.
There I was, standing at the computer in the middle of a Friday night rush, staring out at a beautiful girl sitting in my section, and was completely tripping out.
My whole body was shaking, I began to sweat, my eyes teared up, and I was dizzy. Lance, my friend and roommate, noticed my behavior and asked me what my problem was, only, not in so many words.
I answered…“You see that brunette sitting over there at my table?
….That’s my wife!” Lance looked at me like I was a total idiot! “Man, what are you talking about?” he says to me; then he asked me who she was, and I told him that I had no idea because she wouldn’t talk to me.
I did tell him that I could not explain how I knew, but that she was the woman I was going to marry. Cheryl and I were married exactly one year from that night, 18 wonderful years ago!
People have all kinds of theories about love; and debate as to whether or not there is any such thing as “Love at first sight.”
Who is right, and who has the better understanding, is of no use to me; I do know this…I would have married Cheryl that night in the restaurant, and without even knowing her, and would have tried to get her to talk to me at some other time…the feeling was that intense.
Our journey together has been a full and happy one; with our share of tragedy, pain, fights, near – endings, break-ups and make-ups, and all the rest that comes with love.
But our story continues on…because we have worked hard at it. Marriage is a journey, a quest if you will, and it is far less fragile than we have been led to believe.
Whenever I marry a couple at the church, I require them to attend three pre-marital counseling sessions with me.
In that time, I try to instill in the couple an understanding that marriage in the most difficult, yet rewarding endeavor that they will ever be involved in; that they will have to do the hard work of love, they will have to fight for every day, for every victory, and that for having done so…they will be rewarded with the prize of each other.
That peace comes at a high price…the price of pride, that a soft answer destroys anger, that the word divorce should never be spoken…ever…not even as a benign threat; and that no one should ever leave the house in a fit of rage and be gone for the night.
I tell them that they should never stop dating; come jobs, stress, children, and schedules, they should always take the time to go out together and re-connect…and that you don’t have to have money to do so.
I have learned that marriage is not 50/50…it’s 150/150 and you collide together on the path to going the extra mile for your lover.
Expectations can be destructive when they are selfish, and back-logs kept of past hurts will surely destroy.
I have learned that in a fight…even if I win…I lose, because I have to hurt my wife to gain the victory; and it’s simply not worth it. I have also learned that no matter what…no matter what…she comes first; and this conviction has kept me from many mistakes.
Over the past 18 years there has been a lot of living; children, tons of pictures and memories. Cheryl and I have been through many changes, and we have grown stronger through it all; we are also still very much in love.
If asked to re-live one moment in my life I would choose just one. I would love to go back to September 18, 1992, and to see Cheryl once again for the first time. I would want to feel that powerful and overwhelming sensation of awareness that she was the totality of all my dreams; and I would happily do it all over again…every minute of the past 18 years.
Jason, father of six