Sentimental Sunday A Hero Story...Love At First Sight

I have told my story many times to others, but it is usually in conjunction with being a college student and trying to work full time.

I had just moved to Houston from St Ann, Illinois where I had been living and working with my best friend. I had decided I wanted to go back to college and finish. Now, I had only gone to one semester at the local college where I lived in Oklahoma, while living at home. I suffered a heart break and my best friend said come up and live with me to get away from it all. I was working for SW Bell telephone as an operator, so it was easy to transfer. We had a lot of fun.
My mom and dad encouraged me to go back and finish college. I started researching places to go for a Nursing degree, and the best one was in Houston. My best friend was up for an adventure and decided to move to Houston with me.
We got there. She had been able, if memory serves me well, to transfer with her skills. I on the other hand found there weren't any openings with the telephone company in Houston. The college posted jobs available in the area. One was to be an all night checker at the Methodist Hospital cafeteria. I guess they catered to students, because I got the job even though I had never worked as a checker before. It was a lot easier getting a beginning job back  in the day. I often now feel like it was meant to be. My thoughts were how hard can it be? I can work all night, probably get some study in, and then go to school during the day. I can do this.
Ahmad was training me. He was quitting, so he was training me to take his place. The first night I was in training, Ahmad had a huge group of friends come in during his break time to visit. The Hero was among them. He was home on leave from his Army Reserve Training.

My handsome hero

As I sat there, I just listened to the conversation flow. The Hero was asking Ahmad for help because his wife had filed for a divorce on him the 2nd month of his training. At one point, our eyes met and held. I was mesmerized. Later in life we reminisced about our first meeting. He said he thought my eyes were so pretty and he wanted to know me, but at the time, his thoughts were on his crumbling marriage.  I remembered being caught up in the moment in his eyes and wondering, how could I ever date a divorced man. Neither of us ever forgot the moment that everything else faded away and our eyes were locked.
It would be 2 months later before we dated, and a year later before we married, but the love was there. He hesitated fearing to be hurt again. I was not ready to hesitate, and never let go. He laughed and said on our first date I was the most forward girl he ever met... Okay, I told him I was going to marry him and have his children...not the most subtle way to let a man know you have chosen him.
It all worked out and we had our forever marriage sealed in the Mesa Temple...and ya'all have been hearing about the rest of the story.
Sometimes, not always, hearts touch each other through the eyes. I am glad ours did.

The Hero Always Responded to a Request

I thought I had written this story, but it is not on the blog.
This week I had an event in my life that brought the blessings of knowing and having the Hero in my life.
Forgive the short rant.
I have been fighting a virus and my chest was hurting.  Low grade fever at night and aches all over, then I was left with left-side chest pain that hurt when I would breath deep.  No... I had not been coughing...in fact no mucus.  As most of you know, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  With in the church there is a Home Teaching program in which members of the church over see a family(ies) other than their own to teach, assist, give blessings too, an so forth.  My home teacher is a truck driver and out of town. So I asked another man I knew to give me a blessing. He said yes, then showed up at the Family History Center where I was working without someone to assist him, said he was just checking to see if I was there (?) and he would get back with me.  Never showed back up, and 24 hours later I received a call from another member who said the first member had texted him I needed to be seen.  REALLY!  What is happening with our world.  I am done... but so disappointed in the priesthood in our ward.
Now the Hero Story and why I find the above offensive.

Day our son was baptised. 

Once the Hero received the priesthood in our church, he took it very seriously as he should have.  No one had to remind him of his responsibilities, in fact, if he was ever your home teacher you continued as his family forever.  He was totally committed.
This is one case.  The Hero and I were awakened at 1am in the morning by a call.  I heard the Hero answer, and begin asking questions.  He put the phone down and immediately began dressing.  I was puzzled...
He told me it was a call from a young man he used to home teach and that he sounded like he had been drinking but there was something wrong. He was going to go and check on him.  I was like, if that is what you need to do.  He called back a few hours later from the hospital.  He had arrived and found the young man had tried to commit suicide.  He loved on the young man and he made a come back to a healthly life.  There wasn't any question of where he needed to be.
Another case he was tired after along drive from Houston to our home it was about 10pm, and received a call that someone needed a blessing he called a couple of members and found someone, went picked them up and they gave the person a blessing.
When he was sick, we called our home teacher and we met another member at a fast food restaurant where they gave him a blessing in the back seat of the car to help the home teacher from driving so far.
He was an exemplary priesthood holder. He taught his sons the same principles and they live up to the standards.  Geez, he would never have texted. To him it was all about live contact, phone calls and visits.  He respected those who were in his care and those who were in need.
In a way, this has not been all bad for me; I have taken the time to reread many of my Hero stories and remind myself of why I started blogging.  So, we would not forget the stories.