By Virginia, January 28, 2019 — George and I met at what people nowadays would call a bar, except for people in their 20’s back then, the main interest was old-school dancing with friends, rather than drinking like people do now. After asking me to dance, and a few dates later, we became boyfriend and girlfriend. After a few short months of dating, we got engaged. Between George’s possible draft for the Vietnam War and both sets of parents thinking we may be too young and should wait a little, it was a true test of our love. Despite all this, we knew we wanted to be together and within some time, everyone knew it too!
Now fast forward to George being sent away to training in Virginia. He has been gone for four months now I am still living with my parents, engaged, and waiting for him to come home to me. One day I am on vacation with my family in New York and I get a phone call from my George saying he has 12 hours off and asking, “Can you meet me in Virginia?” Despite the disapproval of my family, I pick up my purse – nothing else – and got on the train to begin the 6 hour journey to meet George in Virginia.
When I got to the location he mentioned, he was already there waiting for me; it was my favorite moment in four months. We sat and talked for a long time about everything that we had missed in those long months. After hours of talking, he walked me to the room on the 2nd floor. He gave me a kiss goodnight and walked back downstairs to sleep in the car which he drove to see me in. It was the most respectful and loving thing I have ever seen anyone do – despite missing each other so much and wanting to be together, he respected the fact that we were not married and slept in the car instead. You just don’t see that kind of respect anymore. I, of course, was not able to sleep at all, wanting nothing more than to talk to him and be with him. I woke up around 4:30AM, walked downstairs, and we sat in the car talking for hours, before once again being separated for months. It was the best day ever and made me beyond excited to see him again as soon as I could.
Luckily, he was never sent into battle but rather worked on base, and came back to me five months later. The whole experience was a true test of our love and we conquered it flawlessly. Upon his arrival, we quickly planned our wedding and long story short, conceived our first of four children that night (*winks and giggles*). We went on to have three more kids and the rest is history.