Maybe You've Never Heard This Story That's Been 20 Years in the Making...

Maybe you're the type who doesn't buy the "Love at First Sight" possibility...
Maybe you think you have to start as friends and allow love to grow over time....
Maybe you think you shouldn't have your first kiss before your first official date...  :)
Maybe you don't think that it's possible for a couple to break up, almost marry other people, then reunite  and marry each other five years after you met...
Maybe you think long distance relationships never work out...
Maybe you've never seen a picture of the boy I fell head over heels in love with...

This is Lindy Carnett about 48 hours before we met.  The picture was taken on the way back from an Evangel College Spring Break Missions Trip to Salt Lake City, UT.  It was his senior year and my freshman year.  We met on March 11, 1991 the Monday evening following Spring Break.  I won't bore you with the whole story, but we met in Burgess Hall (my dorm) near the water fountain and were introduced by a mutual friend named Robin.  Honestly, I can still remember when our eyes met.  It's as if something inside me clicked and I knew that this was somehow going to be different.  He was soooo good-looking (and, unfortunately, he was one of those guys who knew it), but I'm not a girl who's only impressed by good looks so I did what came naturally to me and I made fun of his name.  I was immediately in love and the serial dating I had been doing my freshman year came to a screeching halt.  I found out on Wednesday that Lindy's suitemate was in my Anatomy class so I had someone close by to give me the intel on him.  Later than night, he happened to be in the lobby of my dorm when my friend and I were leaving to go to church.  Lindy decided he was going to flip a coin to determine whether he would go with us.  (I guess I must have invited him).  He kept flipping the coin over and over and eventually I stopped him and said, "If you really want to go, you'll go."  He went.  I found out that night that he played the drums and ended up playing because the drummer wasn't there.  One more thing to love because I was already a sucker for drummers.  The three of us went to the airport to watch planes land and then to Village Inn for hot chocolate.  By the time we got back to my dorm, we had our first kiss after my friend got out of the car.  Tacky, I know, but we were college students.  The next day he called me to ask me out for Friday night and I told him that he hadn't given me much notice.  I said to him that I usually didn't accept dates from guys who wait until the day before to ask.  Not very respectful, if you ask me.  But, I told him I would make an exception for him since we had only met three days before. 

Our first official date was on March 15 and we went to see "Dances with Wolves" and out to dinner at the Bombay Bicycle Club.  This was a double date with his cousin, Daniel.  Daniel eventually ended up with a different girl in the long run.  I took Lindy home to meet my parents the next day and my Mom's exact words--no lie--were, "Robin, that boy is too good-looking.  He's going to be trouble."  She thought, and many others did too, that Lindy looked like Tom Cruise.  Back in the day before Tom Cruise went loo loo.  You know, the "Risky Business" Tom Cruise.  That one. 

The next evening, St. Patrick's Day, I met Lindy's grandmother--Nana--and he introduced me as his "ride."  Nice.  He didn't have a car at the time so I was his ride, but still, give the girl a little respect, will ya?  Nana put me through the paces even though I was just Lindy's ride and asked me the questions that were important to her. 

1)  How much do you weigh?
2)  How tall are you?

Believe it or not, I told her.  She seemed to be satisfied and she liked that I had on lipstick.  (Some things never change no matter how many years go by).

So began our relationship and from that moment forward we were pretty much together whenever possible until graduation.  He even rode his bike to the mall to hang out at Hot Sams pretzel place where I worked.  I loaded him and his bike in the back of my car and drove us back to campus.  We "studied" in the library--this was really more about passing each other notes.  I met the rest of his family around Easter and he told them I was a sophomore and, technically, that was correct because I had clepped out of some classes and had enough credits to be a sophomore.  But, no matter how you sliced it I was still three years out from getting my nursing degree.  It bothered him quite a bit that I was 18 and he was the ripe old age of 21.  I loved his family from the start, especially because I had never had any sisters.

 

After graduation, we were pretty much long-distance until the next March when we broke up.  That's right.  We broke up on March 14 and it was not pretty.  I was devestated because I really felt that God had told me two months earlier that Lindy was the man I would marry.  There have only been a couple times in my life--and God seems to save it for me when it's a life-altering decision--that I have known without a doubt His will for me.  When we broke up it made me really question whether I could trust what I felt God had told me.  Later on that summer my brother and I were coming home from the movie together and I was talking to God about the situation again since I just knew He had said Lindy was the one.  God told me to be patient.  He was working everything out.  Well, patience isn't necessarily my strong suit.  I practiced "patience" by getting into another relationship and almost getting engaged.  He had the ring and then we broke up.  That relationship was the easiest thing in the world to get over.  All it took was an entire evening of me crying on the phone to my brother, my Mom, and then my Dad.  By the time I woke up the next morning I was over it.  I guess that was a clue at the time that the other guy wasn't the right one.  At the same time, unbeknownst to me, Lindy was engaged to be married to another girl until that relationship was broken off.

I went on to date other guys but never could get Lindy out of my heart, try as I might.  When I would visit Springfield I would invariably run into a family member of his or a friend.  Over two years had gone by since Lindy and I had spoken.  As I mentioned earlier, things did not end well and there was never really any closure to our relationship.  From September 1994 to January 1995 I kept feeling like I needed to write Lindy a letter to just wish him well and say there were no hard feelings.  (This was in the day before e-mail, text messaging, etc.)  I finally wrote to him and he wrote me right back.  We wrote a couple more times and then he started calling.  It was all very friendly.  I was living in Tulsa and he was in St. Charles.  By the time May 1995 rolled around we had been getting to know each other again for about four months.  We had broached the subject of him coming to visit me, but hadn't set anything in stone.  The day before Mother's Day Lindy was in a bad motorcycle accident and when his Mom came to the hospital he told her to call Robin.  She said, "Robin who?"  She had not a clue that we had been talking for four months.  I should back up and say that about two weeks earlier my Mom was visiting me in Tulsa and we were driving around looking at houses for me to buy.  (There I go being patient again).  She finally said, "Robin, there is something you're not telling me."  Mothers of daughters just know, I guess.  I tried to deny it, but she insisted I was keeping something from her.  I finally gave in and said, "I've been talking to someone."  She immediately replied, "Lindy."  I was like, "How on earth did you guess that???"  His name had not mentioned, in vain or otherwise, in over two years.  Mom said, "Oh, Robin.  Your Dad and I always thought you were too hard on him anyway."  Go figure.  Anyway, back to the motorcycle accident.  Debi ended up calling me to let me know and I flew up to see him in the hospital.  It was during the flood of 1995 and I learned that 17-year-old Ronnin was a scary driver in the rain.  Yikes.  She brought me from the airport to the hospital and Lindy said when I walked in the room he knew we were going to get married.  He's also said it might have been the Demerol but he thought I looked like an angel.  There must have been a light in the hallway shining around my long blonde spiral-permed curly hair.  I was his curly-haired girl and he was going to marry me.

If you haven't guessed by now, Lindy and I pretty much broke all the hard and fast rules that people have come to depend on when it comes to dating and relationships.  That two-day visit to St. Louis turned into us talking every day on the phone.  We would talk for hours into the night and I learned that you know you've been up late when you can still taste your toothpaste from the night before when you wake up at 4:45 a.m. to go to work.  Being long distance during this time was probably the best thing that could have happened to our relationship.  At this point it was becoming serious and we knew it was going to last.  He came to visit and brought his friend, Matt.  They decided on a whim to come visit me and they drove all night to arrive not long after I had gone to work.  He came to visit another time with Matt and another friend.  The deal that time was that I was required to have dates lined up for his friends.  We had a good time.  During those visits Lindy was still on crutches.  He had graduated from wheelchair to walker to crutches and had a heart-shaped skin graft on his left shin.  For the boy who was so sure of his good looks, having a bum knee brought about a little humility.  He was still my Lindy, though, just wiser and more mature than the boy I first laid eyes on. 

I also came to visit him in St. Charles a few times and when I visited in October 1995 I knew it was going to be so that he could propose.  I can still see myself looking at my left ring finger as he drove to 94th Aerosquadron Restaurant and knowing that after that night it would never be bare again.  He did propose and then I agreed to move to St. Charles.  About three weeks later, Lindy arrived with Matt, Dave, and Jenn to help me move.  We didn't know it then but Jenn was to be Matt's forever love and we are so blessed to still be close friends with them.  We had set the date for March 16, 1996 because that weekend was going to be five years from our first date.

God was right, as He always is, and I married my "love at first sight" on March 16--five years from the weekend of our first date. 


Every March since then has been a month of celebration because that is the month of spring when our love first bloomed.  Ten years after we married I gave birth to our third son, Gavin.  He was due on March 8 and I had resigned myself to being overdue.  I was hoping that he would be born on March 11 to commemorate the day we met but he missed it by 25 minutes and he was born on March 12 at 12:25 a.m.  He was the best ever anniversary gift when we brought him home from the hospital on our 10th anniversary. 

Now, it's March again and this time it's 20 years since we met and 15 years since we married.  Lindy promised me that life with him would not be boring and he's definitely kept that vow.  He always keeps me guessing, he is the funniest person I know, he's steady and dependable, he still maintains his "gonna be trouble" good looks, and he "gets" me when no one else does.  He's my best friend and the keeper of my secrets.  He's my every day testimony of what kind of spouse you can have if you trust God and put your life in His hands.  I probably would have saved myself a little bit of heartache if I had just held on to what God told me in January 1992.  It's hard to believe that we have this many years in our love story and I can't wait to see all that is waiting for us around the next corner.  It won't be predictable if Lindy has anything to do with it.  One more reason why he's my true love and why I'd go through it all over again if it means I get to spend the rest of my life being his wife.  Maybe we broke all the rules, but I wouldn't have it any other way.