PART TWO

PART TWO – LOVE

As a young teen I had watched my oldest brother and his beautiful girlfriend love each other. I remember lying in my bed one night with the blanket of my low self-esteem covering me and wondering if I would ever find someone who would love me. I prayed to God that I would.

At about the same time a young teen girl with a drunken Father was praying. She had watched him point a gun at her mother. One day he pointed the gun at her and her mother said, “enough.” Fu’s parents divorced, and mother and daughter struggled to get by. When I came into the picture, they were more like sisters.

Fu told me how she prayed one night that God would bring her a guy who was a Christian and who would love her, provide for her and protect her.  Years later she told me that when we met, I was the answer to her prayer. She claimed God picked me for her.

It is pretty amazing to be told you are the answer to a girl’s prayers. 

I always saw it a little differently. I felt like God told me I could marry any Christian girl I could find, as long as I could convince her to have me. She said God picked me for her. I said God allowed me to pick her. Go figure!

I always thought our first meeting in the front lobby of Provine High School in Jackson, MS was a chance meet. I was walking to class when she came by with her friend Cheryl, who was also my friend from band. Cheryle introduced us. I found out years, I mean, years later, that Fu had asked Cheryle to introduce us. She had noticed me and wanted to meet me.

What I thought was serendipity was actually Fu directing events toward what she knew she wanted. They were waiting for me to come around the corner that morning. She did things like this all our life together, and I loved her for it.

She hadn’t escaped my notice, either. We went to the same church but hung out with different people. 

At a Campus Life/Youth for Christ meeting our tenth-grade year, she was sitting on the floor with some other girls. I chose a seat right behind them. Three things I noted about her.  One, her hair was long – halfway down her back – auburn colored, and had a shine and a softness to it that was almost irresistible. I wanted to reach out and touch her hair. Second, her figure. She had really nice curves. And third – I know this sounds odd – but I noticed her posture. She sat up straight, eluding confidence and beauty. But there was a problem. She had a boyfriend. I had to wait.

Apparently, Richard was not the answer to her pray. (Sorry Richard.)  Toward the end of our tenth-grade year, she was available, and I made my move. I honestly believed that I was the one taking the initiative, but in reality, she had been working on this for a while. Soon, we were Mutt and Fu, and we knew we were meant to be together. 

Five years later, the summer of 1977, we became husband and wife. Forty-three years after that I stood beside her bed with our three adult children and watched her leave this life. And I became a Mutt without a Fu.