30 years ago, she couldn’t have known much about a sleepy little ag town called Montezuma. 

Perhaps if she had, she would have changed her mind about accepting a teaching position nearby. 

30 years ago, she wouldn’t have known that her life would become forever intertwined with that same community.

30 years ago, she didn’t know of a guy who would watch her walk up to church for the first time, think for a few seconds on her light-yellow dress, and then think of other things, like most young men his age were wont to do.

A little over 25 years ago, she couldn’t have known, that ice cream and chocolate sauce would be a staple ingredient to a happy life, or that brown sugar on cereal is better than white.

Neither could she have known that rattlesnakes would compel the worst sense of panic in her, or that children would be one of her greatest joys. 

And, 25 years ago, she was spared in knowing of pain and heartache.  Of surgeries and the West Nile Virus.

She didn’t know then, but she does much better now, that a garden and yard greenery does not grow as easily in Kansas as it does in Mississippi.

She didn’t know that the phrase in one of the songs on her wedding would be lived out in truth over and over again.

Again, she couldn’t have predicted how each of her strapping sons would have her join them, one in L.A., and one in India, to see what kind of humanitarian work they were doing. Because after all, she was the one who taught them by example, of service to others.

Or she wouldn’t have guessed her sweet daughter had a voice so much like hers, that others couldn’t tell who it was that was singing with the family.

Or that the same daughter can practically outcook her mom these days.

Thousands and thousands of green beans snapped and canned.

Hundreds and hundreds of peaches, skinned, canned, or frozen, and put up for all the rest to enjoy.

Strawberries disappearing, as if by magic by her boys before she could get them processed.

Twisted, inside-out clothes, in a never-ending stream coming from hampers and then from the washer and dryer.

Or the hundreds of young folks who came to her house, and loved it there, because of her.

Or the beautiful daughters who found happiness in her sons.

She couldn’t have known, that a little over 25 years later, she would climb into a small Uber ride in the heart of San Diego and ask that same guy from way back to buckle her seat belt for her.

Because all of that and more, is what love is.