Love Poem: How I Met My Wife
Charles Henderson Avatar
Written by: Charles Henderson

How I Met My Wife

It was the fall of fifty-four and “cool” was the in thing. I was a senior in high school and had just moved to Camden High. I was checking things out. Rambling down the hall one day I just happened to look into a freshman classroom. There I saw the most beautiful face. Two very large dimples began to bloom as our eyes met for only a second. She blushed and it highlighted the turned up corners of her perfect lips. Strange, I felt I knew her. I did know her. She was the faceless dream haunting me my whole life. She was the one I knew I would meet some day. The one God guided my way. The one I knew would be my wife. I was smitten. How could I meet her without being so blatantly obnoxious? A friend of mine was dating her cousin. I was told her name was Carolyn. Patricia, the cousin would try to set it up for us to “accidently” meet. Carolyn went to church quite often to the Sunday evening service. We lived in a small town and Sunday evenings were spent "cruising" from a drive-in restaurant on one side of town, to another on the opposite side. What a “coincidence” we all turned up at church on the same evening. Pat asked Carolyn if she would like to go ride. She did, but would have to go home to ask her parents. She was too young to date. When she asked her parents about going out for a while they each said for her to ask the other, They finally agreed because Pat was with us. The next Sunday evening we spent the evening at her home. After that we went out just about any time we wanted to but, “came back early”. Those were the best of times. So, began the start of a relationship destined by the hand of One who protects and twines. After graduation, I was away at school. There as a ministerial student, I felt displaced. It didn’t take long to know it was not working out. I settled the mounting pressures of school, the church, by joining the military. While I was stationed in Japan for almost three years she finished school and worked while attending Carolina. After that I was away in another town working. We claimed each other for six years while shaping, settling, waiting for the right time. We decided we would marry in 1960. November twenty-sixth was the date set aside. It was a simple, pretty wedding in my church. We left the wedding and spent the night in Columbia, leaving there to honeymoon in the Blue Ridge. We returned on Monday, for I had to work and brag about my new bride. © Sept. 25 2010 For Frank's 'Love" contest