“Grandma, how did you meet Grandpa?”
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My grandfather acts concerned when my younger sisters ask for a story I'd forgotten they don't know. Uncertain what memories my grandmother will recall and nervous about the details she might share, he blusters, “That was a long time ago! You girls don't really want to hear all that.”
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My grandmother chooses to oblige their interest. She goes back further than he expects, to childhood, when his family started attending the Mennonite church which her parents moved up here to begin. They knew each other then, she says, just as all the farm boys and girls did. He wasn't anything special, just the oldest of that Lewis clan.
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She was a year ahead of him in high school and went back south to Lancaster for her senior year, so it was only later that they really started hanging out. After she graduated, she came home to her parents' farm, and slowly, this farm boy who sometimes got to drive his father's car became a part of her life. My grandfather becomes a bit defensive—in a good-natured way—but can't deny the facts as my grandmother tells of his days as a “ladies' man,” how he used to flirt with different girls in different subjects. “You can't know that,” he exclaims, “you were already graduated.” “I had your cousins to tell me everything,” she reminds him.
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He started driving her home from youth group at the church. They would stop on the way home at the only little place that was open evenings. Grandma says that he would always buy them a single glass bottle of orange soda to share. Grandpa remarks, “You really did like orange soda, didn't you?”
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Any “dating” they did was in groups, and seemingly only for church events. My grandfather remembers the time Grandma laid down the law: “I won't date a boy who is three-timing me!” [Her memory softens it to “two-timing,” to the amusement of all listening.] He got the message and seems to have focused his future attention on this one young woman.
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Forty six years (and a few months) ago, Grandpa cornered her father at church to ask if he could marry his daughter. She asks, “Whyever did you ask him at church?” His response: “Your parents always seemed to be away somewhere; I had to take the chance when I saw him.” My great-grandfather suggested they would have to talk about it later.
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“What would you have done if he had said no?” my grandmother queries. “Well, I guess we would have had to run away,” he responds. Although neither of them remembers the conversation with her father, evidence suggests it must have turned out well.
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I'm not sure that I've ever seen their wedding photo, though they both agree that there is one. My grandfather likes to use this single image as evidence of how old they are, attempting to convince my younger siblings that photography was still new-fangled technology in the early 60s. Grandma laughs at him and tells the real story, amusing in its own right, of a young photographer's biggest mistake.
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He was there at their wedding, snapping photo after photo, and at the reception too. It seems it was only toward the end of the event that he realised he should probably insert a new roll of film soon. To his chagrin, he discovered there was actually no film in the camera. After admitting the embarrassing fact to my grandparents, he took what remains to this day as the single photo of that memorable day. “I guess we should have eloped after all, if we weren't going to get any pictures.”
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Having spent the last forty six years raising seven children and untold numbers of foster children, they've just celebrated the birth of grandchild number seventeen. They live on the farm that he owns with his father, brothers, and now, some of my father's generation. There is always room at the dining table for whoever happens to stop by, and most of my young cousins are around at least every few days. They tease each other like a young couple, and I love them the more for it, yet they've shared tears as well as laughter through the years.
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It seems that not only technology, but also relationships, get more complicated by the minute these days. While my sisters only know how to play with digital images, my friends have long conversations defining the difference between dating and courting and “friendship with benefits” and all sorts of other confusing scenarios. In the midst of all the “new-fangled” attempts to hook up and make out, it's refreshing to be reminded once again that sometimes, the truest love grows out of something as simple as a shared bottle of soda, nurtured over the years with commitment and laughter.
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And of course, there's always the reminder that I'm breaking family tradition by being so old and unmarried: my grandfather's working on that one, don't you worry!
