OUR LOVE STORY
WRITTEN BY STEPHANIE BELYEW
Featured In WEDDINGHAWAIIMAGAZINE.COM
Jon was home from college on summer break. I was visiting my parents for the summer in St. Louis, Missouri. My family had moved there because my Dad was in the military and had been transferred the year before. Not wanting to start a new school halfway through my senior year of high school, I had stayed behind in Michigan. On Sundays that summer, I would go to church with my mom. I had been in town for about a month and other than the people I saw at church, I hadn’t met anyone else. That summer, July 4th fell on a Sunday and we had family in town so I had opted to stay and visit instead of going to church. When my mom returned from the service, she said that Jon had been planning to invite me to go to the riverfront to watch fireworks that evening. Since I wasn’t in the service, he had asked if she would pass along the invitation. You see, the moms were playing matchmaker as his mom had mentioned that he should invite that nice, new girl from church along. Thrilled at the opportunity to go out and meet some new people, I accepted the invitation. That evening we grabbed some dinner and watched the fireworks light up the sky; it was a lovely evening. The very next day was dragging on and not knowing anyone, I had been complaining to my mom about being bored. “Why don’t you call Jon and see if he wants to see a movie?”, she asked. It took a bit of convincing to make the call, but it would be just as friends after all, so I finally agreed.
When I called, Jon was at work for the evening, I left a message with his mom to pass along the invitation. Shortly after, having given up on the movies, my mom and I took a walk. When we returned I had a message from Jon, and somewhat surprised that he had called, I rung him back. As it turned out, Jon’s mom and he had spoken shortly after I had left a message and she’d let him know I had invited him to the show. Jumping at the chance, he asked his boss to leave early. We made plans to see The Firm later that evening. For the next 12 days we would make plans to see each other every day. On the 13th day his family was going out of town for the weekend. On Saturday while away, Jon and his brother rented mopeds and Jon ended up in a head-on collision with a Blazer; the Blazer won. Jon was knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital. He was released the following day and their family returned home. When I went to visit him that evening, his family was telling me all about what had happened. When he woke in the emergency room, the medical staff and his family were asking him questions to assess his injuries...Do you know where you are? Do you know what year it is? Do you know who the President is?...Jon consistently replied with the same answer; “Do I know a girl named Stephanie?” That evening, all bandaged and bruised, he kissed me for the first time; a soft, sweet light kiss on the cheek. After another month of not missing a single day of seeing each other, I went back to Michigan gathered all my belongings and moved to Missouri and Jon decided to transfer to a local college. The following August we were married. From that first night seeing fireworks until the day we wed, the Saturday of the accident remained the only day in our dating relationship that we did not see each other. Was it love at first sight? Is there such a thing? I don’t know. What I do know is didn’t take very long to know that ‘this’ was what we wanted and that what we felt for each other was different from what we’d felt for anyone before.
Fast forward to today; there have now been plenty of nights that we have spent apart, though we still try to make those nights as few and far between as possible. We have raised three wonderful children (Gabe 24, Madison 22, Noah 20), who have brought so much joy into our life. When we first got married, we made the decision not to have any children in the first five years. Instead, we had three children in the first five years! Looking back, this was a blessing for us. We didn’t know by the time we would turn thirty, we would both be faced with physical challenges, that had we waited, may have robbed us of those plans. Our children have taught us a lot about life. They have taught us to stress less and to love more. That life is a process and today’s failures can be tomorrow’s growth. To embrace the moment...eat the cake, get a pet, buy the shoes (oh so many shoes) and to take time to laugh. I hope we too, have taught them well. Like to always hug your family, you never know when it might be your last. That it’s ok to make mistakes, just learn from them; you’ll be better and wiser for it. Take care of your car, so it can take care of you. And in the worst of it, always first remember to just breathe because it is so much easier a good decision when you are calm.
When you marry young, you also grow up together. Who you are in your thirties and forties may not share much in common with who you were in your late teens...young, free, naive, and so very much in love. You take vows at the altar which, at that age, are near impossible to understand the depth of. That August, when we wed, we vowed to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. Young and naive, we couldn’t have known one of us would end up with a cancer diagnosis and one of us with a chronic debilitating disease diagnosis by our early thirties (in sickness and in health), though I don’t believe we would have been deterred if we had. We couldn’t have predicted within our first five years of marriage we would each lose our jobs and it would take a devastating toll on our finances, though I don’t believe it would have dissuaded us (for richer, for poorer). We couldn’t have anticipated that years down the road, there would be times where we might not have been the best versions of ourselves, nor would we likely have believed it (for better, for worse). The one thing we thought we had nailed down was how to love. Twenty-five years later I think I’d say back then we knew how to fall in love; today, I’d say we know how to stay in love.
Gone is that young, naive couple. They’ve been replaced with (a little bit) older, (somewhat) wiser, probably more realistic version of ourselves. Does that mean there’s less joy, or less butterflies or less passion? No!! Emphatically no!!! It means we now know each other in ways we couldn’t possibly have when we said ‘I do’. It means we continue to learn from and be thankful for each other. It means we remember not to take each other for granted and we make sure to express our love and gratitude for each other daily. It means as we continue to grow up together, that our views and ideas will shift and without communication, this is really hard. It means, now, we do know the depth in the meaning of those vows and we’d take them again and still be willing to uphold them ('til death do we part). In fact, just this past August, we did just that; we celebrated our 25th anniversary by renewing our vows and declaring our continued love for one another. You see, we have come this far in our relationship in spite of our individual failures and in spite of all the obstacles we have faced. We have learned we are better together than we are apart. We bring balance to each other; he’s the yin to my yang. We’ve come this far by loving each other unconditionally, and by knowing no matter what we may encounter in this marriage, this is the grand lesson: when everything else may be in turmoil, all you need is love. That allows us to be in 'this' together and to guard and protect each other’s heart (to love and to cherish).
