CHAPTER 18 Mom and Dad? Pleased to Meet You
Rather than visiting Jane in New York, we chose to visit Emily’s Mom and Dad in Texas. Emily couldn’t contain her excitement as we bought some flowers and walked toward their grave. As we got closer, excitement mixed with sorrow colored her face.
“You are in such deep thought. What are you musing over?”
“Even with you by my side, I was wondering whether I would still be sad when I saw them.”
Aside from the obvious, I couldn’t understand why she would be sad.
“I’m usually elated to be with them but some time during the visit, I get sad knowing I have to leave them here. They can never go back with me… I can’t ever bring them back to life.”
I hugged my future wife to comfort her pain. I realized now I could never fill that void for her no matter how hard I tried. It needed to be filled with parental love. Possibly my parents could try a little harder to fill her emptiness.
“Mom. Dad. I want to introduce you to Jake. This is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.” Emily introduced me to my future parents.
“Hello Mr. and Mrs. Logan. My name is Jake Reid and I am late but here to ask you for Emily’s hand in marriage. I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier to ask for your permission. I should have been here back on New Year’s Day with Emily but I was a fool. I’ve hurt Emily a lot since Christmas but I promise you I will love your daughter as much as you love her if you’ll allow me to marry her. I’ll take care of her and protect her. I’ll make sure to love her so fully and completely that when she comes to see you in the future, she won’t leave you sad, missing your love. Thank you for bringing her up so beautifully. Emily has an incredible warmth and sincerity I’m sure she learned from the both of you.”
I proceeded to give them our dramatic story from the day we met at the grocery store.
“I’m sure it comes to you as no surprise that Emily stunned me with her beauty and kindness from the day I met her. I think I fell in love from that first night but it took her a long time to admit she loved me. Mom, I’m sure you’re thrilled to know your daughter has kept her promise to you till the very end. She won’t let me get too far, though I still try. Sorry, you probably didn’t want to know that.”
I chuckled to myself till I heard Emily cry.
“What’s the matter?” Circling my arms around my soon to be beautiful bride, I thought, “I really should carry a park of tissues with me. You cry way too easily.” I kissed her forehead.
“I was just asking my Dad who will walk me down the aisle?”
“You know my Dad would love to walk you down. You can also walk down on your own and that would make a beautiful statement of how strong you have been, coming this far on your own. We have a few weeks. Let’s think about it.”
Once I saw that Emily was okay, I continued telling Mom and Dad about our courtship.
“So your daughter doubted my love for her and left me with nothing but a letter and traveled all the way to Japan. I didn’t see her again for almost five months. She wrote me two letters while Max got weekly letters and when she came into town for Sarah’s wedding, she saw everyone but me – her future husband. Can you believe her? After my many confessions of love, she couldn’t trust me.”
I glanced over at Emily to make sure she wasn’t crying again. She was in her own thought with a smile on her face. She must have been talking to her parents about us.
“I’m going to assume you love me like my parents love Emily and are giving us your blessing to get married. I know it broke your heart to leave her so early but I promise to make up for your absence. I will take good care of her. Thank you for Emily.”
I waited for Emily to be done and before I could say a word, of course the first thing she said was, “I’m hungry. Let’s go have steak.”