Little House on the Prairie

So how has your life changed in two years? I thought about that today, and remembered what my day was like just two years ago today. I remember quite a bit about that day, actually. It's probably within the top five of my "most memorable days ever". Here's why.

The night before, sleeping hadn't gone too well for me. I had come to the point where I knew I had to make a decision. I'm sure you all know by now just what the reason for my dilemma, but if you don't, I'll let you in on the secret. My brother Matt and his wife had a certain someone staying at their house, helping out with Keagan, their newborn baby. And this particular female person had invaded my thoughts quite a bit, to the point of the aforementioned insomnia. Praying about what I should do only seemed to drive me closer to making the leap into the point of no return, as it were. Which didn't help the sleeping much.

That day I was working in the truss shop, as usual. For some reason, Patrick (my cousin) stopped in at the shop before leaving on a trip to Indiana. Before he left the shop he asked if I had anything I needed to tell him. I said no. He said, "well then, I guess I'll tell you. That niece of Matt's is a really nice girl, and I think that you should get on the ball and talk to her dad." This was NOT something Patrick would ever say. Ever. Period. He even offered to help me make the phone call to her dad, which is downright unbelievable if you know Pat. At that point I decided that God was serious about having me ask this girl.

About that time, I got a call from Dad that he would like some help moving a sweep auger into a bin over at Willius', and so I went over to help him. As I recall Matt was there too. Previous to this day, Dad and I had discussed the possibility of my starting a courtship with Jenny, as had Matt and I. I think that they were attempting to help me realize that I needed to make a decision on whether to pursue it or not. After not sleeping very well (as mentioned) for several nights with this weighing on my mind, and after the totally unexpected encouragement from Patrick which I took as confirmation, I was ready to do it. First I made one more call to my dad, asking once more if he thought I should do it. He encouraged me to do it if I felt it was God's will. I then called Matt, who offered to call Elv and see if he was available, after which he gave me his number and told me to call him in the next fifteen minutes, as he would soon be out of cell service very soon. Talk about being put on the spot! I made the call to Elv, and when he answered I said, "Hi, you might not remember me, but I'm Gabriel Burkey, Matt's brother." He instantly replied, "Oh yeah, I remember you, you're the one who backed into my car!". Hey, it was a start! The rest of the conversation doesn't seem to be recorded very well into my memory, but the end result was that he would talk to Jenny and find out if she was open to hearing from me. She was, and he called me back to let me know that.

Work that day didn't go well for me. We ate in Beaver at the cafe, and for the first time in memorable history, I left the remains of a double bacon cheeseburger on my plate. I didn't feel well.

I managed to come up with some excuse or other to leave work a little early, and after stopping at Millers to pick up my deer meat which they had processed, I had one more phone call to make. I called over to Amy's and asked to speak with Jenny. Can you imagine Amy not asking what I was calling about? But she didn't, which was very nice of her. When Jenny answered I attempted to nonchalantly ask her if I could speak with her in about twenty minutes or so, and she agreed that it would be possible. It was one of our more strained phone calls.

When I arrived at the house, Jenny suggested that we go for a walk (I found later that Amy just wanted us to go away somewhere to talk). We started walking down their lane, and the fluid speech I had been practicing jerked roughly out of my mouth. Don't know what I said for sure, but apparently it was okay, because the next thing I knew Jenny was telling me that she was actually willing to be my girlfriend! Somehow, I just hadn't expected that. I don't know what I expected. Probably that she'd tell me she needed time to think about it. But I think it was nicer this way.

As they say, the rest is history! I sure enjoyed showing my new girlfriend to my folks and all my friends. I think they'd seen her before, but she wasn't my girlfriend then. It was amazing how well I slept that night too. I found out that Jenny hadn't been sleeping so well herself. But we seemed to cure that too.

Well, a lot can change in two years. I can't say that everything has been perfect in those two years, but I wouldn't change that particular day two years ago, for anything.

~GB