"The road was long from my front door in south central Kansas to Mike's front door in south western Colorado. 611 miles long. I'd made the journey out already four times since first coming to visit him in January last year. I knew I was going to move there when school was out at the end of May. I wasn't coming out here just to visit, or to stay for a few months and then go back to resume life in Kansas. I knew I was making the journey here for "good" and because of that, two kids from "the land of long ago and far, far away" made the decision that if we were going to commit to that type of decision, we figured it was time to get married to one another. And we did."
It was a year ago this time that we began to make plans for a wedding to one another and the plans we made ended up being a tiny bit on the unconventional side, even for Mike and I. In late April, when I was here visiting Mike for a few days, I asked him one favor. As we were sitting in the living room here, in the very spot I'm typing this blog post from this early morning, I said to him.....
"How would you feel about our getting married at school, in front of all the students and teachers at Lincoln, on the very last day of school?"I wasn't sure what he would say. Maybe "yes" and maybe "no". But his answer really shouldn't have surprised me at all because 99.9999% of the time in our lives together, Mike has been open to just about anything that I have suggested.
"OK", he replied back and so all right then, that's what would we would do.We had five weeks to get everything in order but I was determined that everything would end up all right. The planning began that day as we sat here together dreaming about what life would be like ahead of us. I don't even know how I came up with the idea of being married on the last day of school. Really, as I stop to consider it that idea just came to me one time as I was driving back to Kansas. Must have been the high altitude of the Western Slopes or something but really, why NOT get married there? The students at my old school, Lincoln Elementary, were a part of my bigger extended family and the staff had been my dearest of friends and colleagues. As well, if we were to be married back in Kansas all of our family members could join us too. It was the right thing to do and we did it.
The gymnasium seemed to be the logical place to have the ceremony and I still have to smile inside of my heart when I remember the conversations that my dear friend Brenda and I would have together as we did our morning duties of monitoring the breakfast group each day at Lincoln. As we stood near the doorway, greeting the kids and taking their breakfast cards, I'd be scanning the gymnasium imagining what a marriage ceremony would look like there.
"Geesch Brenda. I'm looking here and I can't figure out one thing. Which basketball goal do you think would be the most romantic one to get married under? Or what the heck, do you think we should just stand in front of the pass-through window for the kitchen that day?" Both of us laughed every time we would think of it and the memory of those conversations warms my heart even this day, now nearly a year later.We received permission to use the school's gymnasium for the afternoon and set the time to be married at 4 p.m. It was most important to me that every child at school and each staff member receive an invitation to be there. I also wanted dear friends from my former school of Avenue A Elementary to join us that day as well. My dear friend from school, Pat Lillard, came up with a beautiful invitation for us to use and off to Office Max I went to run off about a gazillion copies of it. I gathered up the addresses of everyone and systematically, one by one, went down the long list. The post office loved me. I didn't know how many of them would actually be able to be there, especially since it was the last day of school, but I wanted them to know that I loved them and wished for them to be witnesses to our wedding ceremony. In the months ahead, when they would return back to school, I didn't want them to wonder what had happened to me and why I had not returned with them. I would miss them, all of them, more than I could imagine.
My dear friends at Lincoln stepped in and said "How can we help you?". They worked together to come up with cookies and punch for us to serve afterwards. When my good friend from summer school, Sally Bailey, found out that we had chosen the north basketball goal to stand under, she immediately stepped in and said that she had an arch at her house and would decorate it for us to make it look even nicer that day. To work, Sally went, combining sunflowers for Kansas and pine cones for the mountains of Colorado. When you see photos of our wedding that day, her labor of love is right there. My dear friend and fellow teacher, Kris Styes, baked a wedding cake for us to enjoy afterwards with our family. One of her students, also a former student of mine from Avenue A, designed our wedding cake top and it brought tears to my eyes to see his work. Every person at Lincoln stood behind us in our decision to marry and they were bound and determined to see to it that our special day would be one to remember.
The day of the wedding, May 21st, had flown quickly for me as I knew it well would. The sixth graders were having their promotion to middle school ceremony at 2:00 and I knew that if Mike and I were going to be married at 4:00 in the very same gymnasium that it would be a "trick" to pull off the necessary things to be done. I should not have worried, not even one bit. Just as soon as the last bell rang for the school year at 3:10, friends and family went to work. My dear friend Darlene, who was the Boys and Girls Club supervisor, helped to orchestrate every detail that she could to make the transition from last day of school to "Mrs. Miller's going to get married in there" as smoothly as she could. Her staff members stepped right in, taking care of the many kids who were staying for the wedding as well as sitting with them on the floor right next to us as we got married.
Twenty minutes before the ceremony was to begin, someone looked at me, still in the clothes that I had been wearing all day long and said "Mrs. Miller, don't you think you should change clothes pretty soon?" Oh yeah, that would be a good idea. Right on schedule, ok well maybe 2 minutes late but what's two minutes anyways, we met in the gym under an arch decorated in swags of sunflowers and pine cones. The music of Dan Fogelberg's "Longer" started us off and a good friend and fellow Lutheran, Judge Buck Lyle, led us in our vows. Two of my students, Matthew and Emma, read the verses from 1st Corinthians that remind us all of the power that love has in our lives. My fellow members of the "broken arm" club, NaDonna and Darin stood there with us as well as Mike's sister and brother-in-law. We smiled and kind of laughed as a slide show played in the background. My good friend Courtney, a teacher at Lincoln, had helped to put together the photos of Mike and I that we had chosen for the day. It was very special to us. 14 minutes after we had begun, two kids who hadn't even crossed the same paths for over 40 years, were man and wife. May 21, 2014 will mark one year of married life and ironically, it will be the last day of school for Olathe Elementary this year.
I would tell you that it has been easy since then, a slice of that proverbial "piece of cake" but then I would be lying. It has not been smooth sailing, not at all. Pretty rough at times is a good way to describe it. Life here was so different for me and it took a whole lot of getting used to it before I felt comfortable enough to say that it was the place I should have been. Once last summer, we were having supper with our dear friends from Kansas, Leroy and Anne Willis. They could sense my unsettledness and realized how homesick for HOME I had become. I liked what Leroy said to me at the supper table that night and I held it close to my heart. It became my strength in the days ahead and would allow me to say it would be "ok" if I only gave it some time.
"Peggy, stop to consider it. You got married, retired from teaching, and moved away from Kansas all in one day's time. Three major life changes that you did all in one fell swoop. What you are feeling is pretty much normal. You will make it. You and Mike will be all right."
Nearly 365 days have passed since that momentous day back on Bigger Street in Hutchinson, Kansas. Life changed and I learned to grow and change with it. My days are so much different now and I'm living in a place that I never thought I would be. I know without a doubt that it was part of God's plan for me and I'm so very thankful for the blessings that have come to me as a result of it. Every once in a while I still miss Kansas and all of the wonderful people that are a part of my life back here, yet my new home is here along the Western Slopes and I have found out there are many fine and caring people here too. God blessed me with a new life. In the least of things, in the greatest of things, I give thanks.
Have a great day everyone out there. I'm thinking of you each this day and love you guys all. For the past, the present, and the future~life is so very good.
April of 2014, hey we are STILL married :) The "blessing" and I after our evening walk yesterday.
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