56. The Real Reasons to Fall in Love (and the Moments That Take Your Breath Away)

"If my heart had wings, I'd fly to you. A breath away's not far from where you are..."
~Celtic Women, To Where You Are

Jon and I didn't fall in love with each other because we were worried about appearances or because either of us thought the other was "cool." I always knew he must have loved me for who I am as a person because when we started dating, I definitely wasn't looking my best. Among other things, I'd gained the freshman fifteen...at least. And before March 23rd, 2003 - our first "official" date - he'd also seen me in several not-so-attractive situations. Okay, maybe more than several. I'd like to say it was love at first sight, but in reality, it was a little more complicated than that.  Where to even begin? Well, I guess you could start with the fact that when I joined ROTC as a freshman I couldn't run a mile without stopping and gasping for breath. Our first workout on my very first day of Physical Training (PT) was a 1.9-mile run. Jon was in charge, and the instructors told him to "go easy" on the new kids. Turned out that for me, even easy was a challenge. I worked on that - hard - over the next couple of years because I got tired of always being in the slow group and of running sucking so much. I eventually reached a point where, instead of dreading it, I was able to complete the Army Ten Miler, and Jon and I could go for a run together at a good pace. The first draft of our wedding ceremony script included this blurb where Jon said that one of the reasons he loved me was because of my dedication to him, to my friends and family, and to bettering myself in areas where I knew needed improvement - according to him, by that point, I could probably beat him on a two-mile run. I ultimately decided to take that sentence out of the final version of the script because although it made me laugh, I saw no reason to lord it over him during our big day. And he could still kick my ass in combatives or a tickle war any day...as he did on many occasions.

I HATE this picture of me - look at those chubby cheeks!  But Jon thought it was cute - this is us at Ruby Tuesday about a month or so after we started dating (April 2003)

Jon and one of his classmates helped move me into my freshman dorm on the first day of ROTC orientation.  Apparently, he'd told one of the other Cadets to save him a cute girl and I was the lucky one he picked.  Other than that brief interaction, I only had a single one-on-one conversation with Jon the rest of my first semester, and it was at the post office in the basement of the arts and sciences building. I was a bad Cadet and hadn't quite wrapped my head around all the uniform rules and regulations. I was wearing my BDU hat inside - a big no-no - because taking it on and off whenever I went into buildings completely screwed up whatever I'd been able to do to get my hair under control (silly me...I cut it all off before joining ROTC, thinking it would make things easier, but ended up just creating more of a headache for myself). When I saw Jon walking toward me, I thought "damn! I hope he doesn't see me with this thing on!" and quickly removed my cover. He was very polite and respectful, and I never would have guessed that beneath that reserved exterior was a man who would later have me doubled over and gasping for air...but this time, instead of running, the culprit would be me laughing too hard.

Jon when we went to the pistol range (my first time!) at Christmas during our first year together - he was such a goofball...and a damn good shot! (December 2003)

During my second semester, I pledged to the military fraternity in which Jon was the designated First Sergeant and PT Instructor. He had seemed pleasant and very competent as the ROTC Battalion Commander, so I figured he'd be one of the nicer ones during the pledging process. I was one hundred percent wrong. I couldn't stand him - I thought he was so mean and hard to talk to. As it turned out, that was all a big act...and when I finally finished the excruciatingly difficult two-month pledge period and got my life back, I discovered that he was actually an incredibly nice and unassuming guy, as I'd originally suspected. It probably worked out to his advantage that he seemed so mean to me as a pledge - in fact, he even made me cry once. But it made getting to know the "real" Jon much more enlightening...and so much more fun.

What's even better is the fact that, unbeknownst to me, Jon made up a rule prohibiting any of the other guys from trying to date me for at least a month after I became a member of the fraternity...and then he promptly broke that same rule about two weeks after I completed pledge period. As one of the other guys in the group told me, he was definitely staking his territory so that no one else would try to call dibs. Again, I thought it was hilarious when I eventually found out - hilarious and oh-so-cute. It all started after we finished pledging when someone in the group sent out an email with a list of everyone's screen names so we could stay in touch over spring break (this was back in the days of AOL Instant Messenger). The first time I ever sent "grassman18" a message to say hello, he pretended like he was all surprised that I'd contacted him personally (in fact, I think his exact words were "Oh God, how did you find me?"). But that was before he casually mentioned that he'd looked at a map and noticed that we only lived forty-five minutes apart from each other in Massachusetts/New Hampshire and would I maybe like to get together and hang out since he was bored and didn't have any big spring break plans? At first, I didn't think much of our first outing together. I thought we were just spending time together as friends and getting to know one another better. But the conversation I had with one of my other new frat brothers the night I got back from that outing went something like this:

Frat brother: What did you do to Jon? He called me all panicked because he said you guys hung out today.
Me: Yeah, we went to get pizza and saw Old School at the movies. So?
Frat brother: Well, he said he already met your dad...
Me: Yes, he picked me up at my house. I thought it was only polite to introduce them.
Frat brother: And he said you showed him two dresses you're thinking of wearing to the military ball and asked him which one he thought you should wear...
Me: Yeah, that's also true. We did a quick tour of the house and they were hanging up in one of the bedrooms.
Frat brother: Well, he's all nervous, so I don't know what's going on. I bet he likes you...

Needless to say, that pizza-and-a-movie outing eventually led to Jon changing his itinerary to be on the same flight back to Baltimore as me. He had my mom and I pick him up at his house in New Hampshire on the way to the airport...only, as it turns out, his house wasn't exactly on our way.  This was a few years before navigating via GPS became standard practice, so it was usually difficult to predict exactly how long a trip would take. The directions Jon emailed me, however, were exact to the tenth of a mile. As my mom pointed out, someone with that kind of precision knows perfectly well that he's adding another 45 minutes to our trip, but these are the things a guy does to impress a girl he likes, right?  When we picked Jon up, he had a week's worth of stubble and a tiny spot of what looked like tomato sauce on his chin.  I pointed it out to him, laughed, and silently made a mental note of how sexy and adorable he looked in that moment. On the plane, he pretended he didn't want to sit next to me because I was sick with a head cold and sniffled throughout the entire flight. Although I could barely breathe, he took the opportunity to jokingly chastise me for infecting everyone else on the plane with my germs...and therein was born a relationship in which making fun of each other led to years of funny stories. After we arrived back at school, it only took another week or so for me to realize, "oh crap, I have feelings for this guy!" After I asked him (via the infamous Instant Messenger) to be my date to the military ball, I think he probably knew he had me hooked. And I'm still hooked to this day. Maybe the better question for my frat brother would have been: "What has he done to me?"

Compare the chubby cheeks picture to this one - when I got to Korea to visit Jon after being apart for a few months, he was surprised by how much I'd changed.  He kept joking around about how my abs were now rock solid (versus before when I'll be the first to admit that they were decidedly squishy!) (December 2004)

I think Jon would have made an amazing father. He used to joke about how I'd have to work extra hard to become an attorney so he could quit his job and stay home to change poopy diapers. It's been one of the hardest things about losing him when we were still so young and just starting out in life - we had this whole plan in place, and it didn't include trying to get pregnant until I was done with law school. Shortly after he died, I remember asking another young widow if she and her late husband had wanted to have kids....and reacting with shock when her answer was no. For me, at least, it's been one of those aspects of this process that I spent a lot of time going over and over again in my head...and then wishing like hell that we hadn't been so careful. I remember when I was a Cadet, Master Sergeant Eversmann (one of my instructors and the lead character in the movie Black Hawk Down) told Jon and I that there's nothing like holding that little bundle of joy in your arms. It was a huge shock to see a guy who was normally a big bad scary NCO melt like butter at the mention of his newborn daughter. It had only been a month or two that we'd been dating at that point, but I remember looking at Jon as MSG Eversmann described how having a baby had changed his life and thinking that I could definitely see myself marrying him one day...and raising a little family with this wonderful man.

Jon and I laughing - this became pretty typical for us as couple.  The closeness and comfort we shared in those moments of pure happiness is something that has never ceased to amaze me and continues, as always, to take my breath away. (July 2006, December 2006)

I still hope to live out that dream of having a little one in my life, however and whenever that might be, but it makes me sad that my baby will never know Jon as his or her father. This is one of the many reasons I've thought seriously about adoption - it's nearly impossible to imagine anyone but Jon being the biological father of my children. As he told me himself, he was so looking forward to the time that we could watch our family grow bigger and grow up together. I wish so very much that we'd had the chance to make that dream a reality. I wish I could tell our baby how their daddy was a good, funny man, and had this beautiful way of saying exactly what I needed to hear at the moment I needed to hear it, like when I was stressed about something at school and he said (via a terrible phone connection from Iraq, no less), "don't worry, baby. As long as we have each other, there will always be something to smile about at the end of the day." So thank you, my sweet husband, for always knowing what to say, for showing me what it really means to fall in love, and for the laughter. I promise, no matter what, I won't let the laughter die. I know you'd be mad if I did...and then you'd probably destroy me in a tickle war. Thank God for the memories and for all the stories...for as long as there are still stories, I'll figure out a way to keep smiling through the tears.

The first time I truly laughed again after being notified of Jon's death:  Telling old stories with old friends at dinner the night after we buried him at Arlington (April 2007)