The Fawn

One afternoon in the spring I was riding my quarter horse down the dirt road that I lived on and suddenly a fawn jumped out of the woods over the ditch and onto the road. I jumped, my horse jumped and then kind of lowered right back down quickly. I was lucky that she didn't raise up any higher because I would have lost my seat. Then we stood there stopped in our tracks, us looking at the little fawn and it looking back at us. I was so mesmerized by the beauty and unexpectedness of it I just sat there watching and waiting to see what it would do next. I think that the fawn was as curious as to what we would do next just a horse and rider standing silently on the road.

Then suddenly my horse snorted, she was becoming impatient with the whole thing and wanted to get on with our daily stroll. The fawn did a little startled leap and then again leaped over the ditch and into the woods on the other side of the road. Not thinking any more about it we continued on with our walk. We probably walked another 100 yards up the road and the fawn jumped out in front of us again. This time we were not as startled, just a small jump like when your watching a tv show and you know something is about to happened and you don't know when then when it does, you jump. Once again we are standing in the road looking at the fawn and it watching us. We must have looked like quite a strange creature to that fawn, not knowing that we were two creatures. After a minute or so off it went again into the woods and we continued our walk again. We didn't see it again but I will always remember that particular ride.

We took a ride almost every day down that old dirt road and through the woods for nearly two years we even went in the winter and of all those fabulous beautiful rides, this one meant the most to me I'll never forget that little fawn and it's quizzical look as it tried to figure us out.

The Paper Route

When my oldest was a baby I decided I needed to be earning some money to help out and saw an advertisement in the local free weekly paper for a driving paper route. It said it took about two and a half hours. I thought that was something that would be perfect and I wouldn't even need a babysitter. So I went and applied. After a very quick interview, I got the job. I had to be in the next small town over to pick up the papers at noon and start my route through the country roads until I got almost back home. It was a great job for a young mother with a small child. I would give him his bottle while waiting for the papers, and then he would sleep nearly the entire route for his afternoon nap and wake up just a bit before it was done.

The best part wasn't the job, the convenience or the money, the best part of my newspaper route was that I met another young mom who thought just like me that it would be a great opportunity for her to make a little money without leaving her baby. We both picked up our papers in the same spot, that is how we met. As we chatted and got to know each other while waiting for the papers to arrive, we realized that we had a lot in common. We made dates to get together with the babies and hang out once in a while. I was so happy to have a friend my age and she had a baby too. Finally someone I could talk to besides my husband. It was great.

Like everything in my life though it was only for a season, when fall started to set in and the weather get colder, I decided it wasn't really something that I would want to do all winter long with a baby in the car. My new friend an I kept in touch for a while and then she moved. I love facebook though because we recently got back in touch through facebook it is great to be able to talk to her again. Now our kids are in college and we have entirely different lives.

The Wedding Invitations

We had decided that we were going to get married. No big proposal, we just discussed it often since we had moved in together and had finally settled on a date. My birthday to coming year. So being very young at the time, I was 19 and he was 20 we decided to keep it small and get married in the same small little church that his parents were married in.

Jim was working all the time so most of the preparations fell to me and his mom. I don't remember where I got the information to order our wedding invitations, but I did and even though we were keeping the wedding small I was informed to order a lot of invitations to send out to relatives on both sides that would never show up but would like an invitation none the less.

There is one reason that I will never forget the day that my wedding invitations arrived. The UPS Truck drove into our driveway. Jim was already home from work. Unusual for him but it was to windy for them to work, not unusual in the MI winter. It was March 9, 1991 I know that because as I was getting the box from the UPS man the phone rang.

Jim answered it and as I sat the box on the table and opened it up he says to me that I need to take the call.

I'm like "You talk to them, I'm busy, I can't wait to see how they look."

He says "No, you have to take this call, it is about your dad."

Then I took the phone because my dad had just gone in to the hospital to have a tumor removed. He had the surgery and we had talked on the phone the night before.

On the other end of the phone was my dad's girlfriend. She told me that he had passed away suddenly in the night. Of course I was devastated. Now I was planning a trip to my father's funeral and our wedding was the very last thing on my mind.

Life is bittersweet. Unexpected events can knock the wind right out of a person. I know that my father's unexpected death really knocked the wind out of me. I think I was running on auto-pilot for some time through the wedding planning to come.

I will never forget the day that my wedding invitations came in the mail. I went within a matter of minutes through the roller coaster of emotions from joy and excitement to despair and dread. I survived with a lot of love from Jim and I still survive remembering the love that was and thankful for the love I have.