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During my high school days, I had gone on “dates” with guys but those dates were more like friends getting together after school and on weekends. Often, my date and I would end up meeting up with other friends or we might even start out as a carload of friends going out. Sometimes we had more than one carload!
We loved to go spooking. We would tell ghost stories and build ourselves up to a good case of nerves and then we visited cemeteries, spooky old churches, or Wolf Meadows, which was rumored to have been an insane asylum. Of course, we visited all of these after dark because that is when the spooks come out!
So, in high school, that was my dating life. I really didn’t have a boyfriend but I had lots of friends who were boys.
During my senior year, we learned that my Great Uncle Bug, who lived in Ohio, had cancer. Uncle Bug was my great-uncle by marriage but he and my great-aunt had raised my mother from when she was ten years old. Uncle Bug and Aunt Alta were more like grandparents to me than aunt and uncle. When I learned that he had cancer, I almost convinced myself that it wasn’t true, that the cancer was just something that I had dreamed up.
During my senior year, we learned that my Great Uncle Bug, who lived in Ohio, had cancer. Uncle Bug was my great-uncle by marriage but he and my great-aunt had raised my mother from when she was ten years old. Uncle Bug and Aunt Alta were more like grandparents to me than aunt and uncle. When I learned that he had cancer, I almost convinced myself that it wasn’t true, that the cancer was just something that I had dreamed up.
Aunt Alta and Uncle Bug
When I found out that he wouldn’t be able to come to my high school graduation, I knew that I hadn’t been dreaming and knew that it was bad.
When I found out that he wouldn’t be able to come to my high school graduation, I knew that I hadn’t been dreaming and knew that it was bad.
After that, more than once when I went out with my friends, I would end up in tears. My friends asked me what was wrong but I still couldn’t tell them that the uncle who was like my grandpa was dying from cancer. I guess that somehow, I still felt that if I didn’t mention cancer, it wouldn’t be so. Instead of telling them that my uncle was dying from cancer, I just told them that he wouldn’t be able to come to my graduation. I never told them why he couldn’t come.
After graduation, a few of my classmates and I went to MTSU for college. My friend Carol was dating a friend of my husband’s and one day, she asked if I would like to go out on a blind date with her boyfriend’s friend. She and her boyfriend would go along; so it was a double date and blind on the part of Mohammad and me.
So the first time that I met my future husband we went to a dance club in Nashville. My friend and her date loved to dance but I was not a dancer at all. Mohammad and I ended up staying in the car talking. He is from Iran and it was interesting to learn about a culture so very different from my own.
When I was telling him about myself, I told him about my family, including that my uncle was dying from cancer. When telling him about Uncle Bug, I started to cry. So on my first date with my now-husband, I spent much of it crying. He was probably the first person that I had really told about Uncle Bug’s cancer.
After returning home, I thought “Well, that could not have gone much worse. I will probably never hear from him again.”
I was wrong. God bless him; he called me to go out again. That is probably when I realized he was a good man and from that moment I began to fall in love. I would years later overhear him talking to my family telling them that when I cried on that first date, he had begun to fall in love with me. He knew that family is important to me and family is also important to him. So the very thing that I thought would make him run was what attracted him to me.
After that first date, we saw each other on nearly a daily basis. That beginning to fall in love had turned into a full-blown “in love”.
After graduation, a few of my classmates and I went to MTSU for college. My friend Carol was dating a friend of my husband’s and one day, she asked if I would like to go out on a blind date with her boyfriend’s friend. She and her boyfriend would go along; so it was a double date and blind on the part of Mohammad and me.
So the first time that I met my future husband we went to a dance club in Nashville. My friend and her date loved to dance but I was not a dancer at all. Mohammad and I ended up staying in the car talking. He is from Iran and it was interesting to learn about a culture so very different from my own.
When I was telling him about myself, I told him about my family, including that my uncle was dying from cancer. When telling him about Uncle Bug, I started to cry. So on my first date with my now-husband, I spent much of it crying. He was probably the first person that I had really told about Uncle Bug’s cancer.
After returning home, I thought “Well, that could not have gone much worse. I will probably never hear from him again.”
I was wrong. God bless him; he called me to go out again. That is probably when I realized he was a good man and from that moment I began to fall in love. I would years later overhear him talking to my family telling them that when I cried on that first date, he had begun to fall in love with me. He knew that family is important to me and family is also important to him. So the very thing that I thought would make him run was what attracted him to me.
After that first date, we saw each other on nearly a daily basis. That beginning to fall in love had turned into a full-blown “in love”.
As I said, Mohammad is from Iran. He was in the States on a student visa to finish his Master’s degree. When he finished his degree, he would have to return home. He cautioned me several times that he would have to go home after his graduation and so that our relationship would to be a temporal relationship. He asked if I was okay with that. I told him that I would be happy today and worry about tomorrow when it arrived.
So for a little over a year, Mohammad and I shared our free time after classes during the week. We listened to music with his roommate. We visited with friends. We went to the movies. We played backgammon.
I tried to help him understand the meaning of some of the terminology in his economics books. I felt like the blind man calling the tail of the elephant a rope as I wasn’t certain how knowing what a word meant in English would translate to the world of economics. He helped me through my grief losing Uncle Bug.
We witnessed the Iran hostage crisis play out on the news and we talked about some of the events that had led up to it. We saw Iran/USA relations deteriorate. Then Mohammad graduated and he had to return to Iran.
Fred's girlfriend Chrystal, Mohammad's roommate Fred, Mohammad, and me
I had a very rough semester after he had to return home. I missed classes, I failed classes and I didn’t even really care. Fortunately, I snapped out of that funk after one semester.
Neither Mohammad nor myself is much of a letter writer, but we exchanged the rare letter. He called from Iran a few times. One of those times I was visiting family in Ohio. He had called me at home in Tennessee to find out that I was in Ohio. He had called at Aunt Alta’s house to find that I was at Kookie’s house.
When he reached Aunt Alta, she had had trouble understanding his accent. She said that he asked if there was a Hatfield there and she had answered, “No, but this is the real McCoy.” Somehow, he got Kookie’s number and he finally reached me there. Kookie told me that I was beaming after his call.
So for a few years, there was an occasional letter and the occasional call. The relationship between our countries was still bad and Mohammad and I hoped that everything would work out between the US and Iran. I hoped that in spite of the distance and the animosity between our countries, everything would somehow work out for us also.
I didn’t date anyone else in college but several friends from Cascade High School were going to MTSU and I had made several new friends in my Dorm there. Just like in high school, several of us started hanging out. We even went spooking!
Finally, I graduated from MTSU in Murfreesboro and entered the physical therapy program at UTCHS in Memphis. It was while I was there in Memphis that I got another call from Mohammad. In that call, he asked me if I would marry him. I said yes but the relationship between our countries was still bad and he couldn’t come here. Instead, I would meet him in Germany and there we would get married. It would take a while to make all of the arrangements.
After graduation, I had started a new temporary job as a physical therapist. When I was offered a full-time position, I told my department head that at some point I would be going to Germany and I would need to be gone a few weeks so I didn’t think that I could accept a full-time, permanent position. She told me that if I took the position, I would be able to take time off when I needed it.
Finally, Mohammad had made all of the arrangements. The tickets to Germany arrived and when the time came, I left to meet him for three weeks in Germany. We had our birth certificates and IDs but there was another paper Mohammad needed and we didn’t have it. He had family members trying to find that document but unfortunately, we could not get it to Germany before I had to return home.
We couldn’t officially marry so we decided that we would marry ourselves. We prayed that God would bless us in our marriage and we decided that His blessing was enough.
I returned home and filled out the paperwork for a fiancé petition. After filling out forms A, B, and C and sending them in, I was told that I needed to fill out forms D and E. After several rounds of this, finally, all of the forms were filled out and Mohammad was able to return to the states so we could marry.
So a few days after his arrival, on a Friday after work, we drove down to the courthouse to get a marriage license. The lady asked us the date we planned to marry and we told her that we weren’t sure because we had to find someone to marry us. She told us that there was a justice of the peace across the hall that could do that for us. So, we stepped across the hall and officially became man and wife. I suppose that we eloped but we didn’t go anywhere to do it and we were as surprised as anyone!
A couple of months later we were blessed with our beautiful daughter, Roxanna. Five years after that, another beautiful daughter Alexandria joined us. Three years later, on Alex’s birthday, we brought our son Cameron home.
Thirty-five years ago this April, my husband and I were officially married. It hasn’t always been easy. Over the years he has made me shake my head many times. Sometimes he will say something in all sincerity, and I can’t help but shake my head in wonder, wonder that he can actually believe what he really, truly, deeply believes.
A bird makes it inside of our screened-in deck but cannot find its way out. He spends hours making a trap and sits patiently ‘til he can spring that trap, catch that bird and release it safely outside. And I shake my head in amazement, amazement that the same man who often doesn’t have time to eat lunch, can take the time to save a little bird, and amazement that his trap actually worked!
I have shaken my head in confusion when he called and asked me if he could buy a chicken or a goat and bring it home. When I told him that A, unfortunately, we didn’t live on a farm, and B we didn’t even have a yard, he in all earnestness said, “What about in the basement?”
A bird’s nest with eggs fell out of a tree and Mohammad asked me if we put it back did I think that the momma would still sit on it. I told him that I really didn’t think so because we had touched it. We picked it up and sat it on the ledge anyway and the momma bird did come back, sat on the eggs, and the eggs hatched! I shook my head in disbelief, disbelief that Mohammad was right and the momma came back even though it probably smelled us all over that nest. For all I knew, it was the same bird he had saved from our deck. I have shaken my head in frustration, the frustration that comes with being late for everything, no matter how important; weddings, graduations…
And as I sit here thinking about my husband, I shake my head again, this time in awe, an awe that of all the people in the world I could have loved, God knew that this man from clear around the world was just the one to plant in my path. Of course, I know that I cause him to do a little head shaking of his own too. Hopefully, we can spend the rest of our lives shaking our heads together.
Neither Mohammad nor myself is much of a letter writer, but we exchanged the rare letter. He called from Iran a few times. One of those times I was visiting family in Ohio. He had called me at home in Tennessee to find out that I was in Ohio. He had called at Aunt Alta’s house to find that I was at Kookie’s house.
When he reached Aunt Alta, she had had trouble understanding his accent. She said that he asked if there was a Hatfield there and she had answered, “No, but this is the real McCoy.” Somehow, he got Kookie’s number and he finally reached me there. Kookie told me that I was beaming after his call.
So for a few years, there was an occasional letter and the occasional call. The relationship between our countries was still bad and Mohammad and I hoped that everything would work out between the US and Iran. I hoped that in spite of the distance and the animosity between our countries, everything would somehow work out for us also.
I didn’t date anyone else in college but several friends from Cascade High School were going to MTSU and I had made several new friends in my Dorm there. Just like in high school, several of us started hanging out. We even went spooking!
Finally, I graduated from MTSU in Murfreesboro and entered the physical therapy program at UTCHS in Memphis. It was while I was there in Memphis that I got another call from Mohammad. In that call, he asked me if I would marry him. I said yes but the relationship between our countries was still bad and he couldn’t come here. Instead, I would meet him in Germany and there we would get married. It would take a while to make all of the arrangements.
After graduation, I had started a new temporary job as a physical therapist. When I was offered a full-time position, I told my department head that at some point I would be going to Germany and I would need to be gone a few weeks so I didn’t think that I could accept a full-time, permanent position. She told me that if I took the position, I would be able to take time off when I needed it.
Finally, Mohammad had made all of the arrangements. The tickets to Germany arrived and when the time came, I left to meet him for three weeks in Germany. We had our birth certificates and IDs but there was another paper Mohammad needed and we didn’t have it. He had family members trying to find that document but unfortunately, we could not get it to Germany before I had to return home.
We couldn’t officially marry so we decided that we would marry ourselves. We prayed that God would bless us in our marriage and we decided that His blessing was enough.
I returned home and filled out the paperwork for a fiancé petition. After filling out forms A, B, and C and sending them in, I was told that I needed to fill out forms D and E. After several rounds of this, finally, all of the forms were filled out and Mohammad was able to return to the states so we could marry.
So a few days after his arrival, on a Friday after work, we drove down to the courthouse to get a marriage license. The lady asked us the date we planned to marry and we told her that we weren’t sure because we had to find someone to marry us. She told us that there was a justice of the peace across the hall that could do that for us. So, we stepped across the hall and officially became man and wife. I suppose that we eloped but we didn’t go anywhere to do it and we were as surprised as anyone!
A couple of months later we were blessed with our beautiful daughter, Roxanna. Five years after that, another beautiful daughter Alexandria joined us. Three years later, on Alex’s birthday, we brought our son Cameron home.
Thirty-five years ago this April, my husband and I were officially married. It hasn’t always been easy. Over the years he has made me shake my head many times. Sometimes he will say something in all sincerity, and I can’t help but shake my head in wonder, wonder that he can actually believe what he really, truly, deeply believes.
A bird makes it inside of our screened-in deck but cannot find its way out. He spends hours making a trap and sits patiently ‘til he can spring that trap, catch that bird and release it safely outside. And I shake my head in amazement, amazement that the same man who often doesn’t have time to eat lunch, can take the time to save a little bird, and amazement that his trap actually worked!
I have shaken my head in confusion when he called and asked me if he could buy a chicken or a goat and bring it home. When I told him that A, unfortunately, we didn’t live on a farm, and B we didn’t even have a yard, he in all earnestness said, “What about in the basement?”
A bird’s nest with eggs fell out of a tree and Mohammad asked me if we put it back did I think that the momma would still sit on it. I told him that I really didn’t think so because we had touched it. We picked it up and sat it on the ledge anyway and the momma bird did come back, sat on the eggs, and the eggs hatched! I shook my head in disbelief, disbelief that Mohammad was right and the momma came back even though it probably smelled us all over that nest. For all I knew, it was the same bird he had saved from our deck. I have shaken my head in frustration, the frustration that comes with being late for everything, no matter how important; weddings, graduations…
And as I sit here thinking about my husband, I shake my head again, this time in awe, an awe that of all the people in the world I could have loved, God knew that this man from clear around the world was just the one to plant in my path. Of course, I know that I cause him to do a little head shaking of his own too. Hopefully, we can spend the rest of our lives shaking our heads together.
Still Valentines.
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