My Valentine

My husband, Jerry, and I met on September 13, 1969. I remember the date because it was Jerry’s 18th birthday. His family was visiting friends at my church on the weekend they were taking him to start school at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville. You might call it a chance meeting since he lived in Greeneville, which is in upper East Tennessee, and I lived in Nashville. Our mutual friend had told me he was cute and she was right. His sandy brown hair was swept across his forehead and he was wearing a sports coat and tie. I am a sucker for a guy in a suit. He looked like a cross between Justin Bieber and James Bond. We whispered and passed notes during the church service.


From that moment on, there was no one else for me but Jerry. He is my soul mate. The person God intended for me to spend the rest of the life with. He completes me. He is what I am not and I am what he is not. He loves me completely for no reason and for every reason. God sent Jerry in that lovely, royal blue, double-breasted sports coat to me. He is my friend, lover, husband, and companion. He is the father of my children and grandfather of my grandchildren. When I prayed for a husband during youth camp the summer before we met, God smiled and thought of Jerry. Months before our “chance” meeting, God put into motion a plan for getting Jerry from East Tennessee to Nashville so we could meet. I tell Jerry that I was made for him. After all, God gave me to him for his eighteenth birthday.