My mom was always one day older than my dad. Exactly one day. They were born in the same year, one day next to each other. Isn't that bizarre and adorable? He always told her she was the old lady of the house for a day. Not quite as adorable...
My parents met on their missions, for our church, in Peru. My mom initially thought he was nice (in a totally appropriate, missionary type way, because, hello, they were on missions and flirting is generally frowned upon in such situations) because he was so courteous and the only elder who opened doors for the sister missionaries. My dad initially thought she was weird (I'm told his actual thought was "That is a weird missionary, I need to stay away from her." In her defense, she had just drunk water in Panama and she was very sick).
So I guess they were both kind of right in their initial assumptions.
My parents then went on to get engaged before going on a single date. This happened AFTER their missions of course.
My mom came home first, and then my dad came home and he basically called her and said "Can I come up and see you? And will you marry me?" That's the Cliff's Notes version, except that's mostly the real version too.
The first time he had dinner at my grandparent's house (you know, my mom's parents) he stood up every time Grandma got up from the table to do anything (in his defense, he was still in Air Force Academy mode, which is where he'd been going to school before the whole mission thing).
Grandma told me that later that night, when her and Grandpa were thinking about the evening, she said "Oh that strange boy is going to ask her to marry him."
Well he did, and she agreed, and the truth is they knew next to nothing about each other when they were engaged. I asked my mom if it was ever weird or if she ever found anything out and thought "What the heck have I done?" but she said that no, they were both just so right and comfortable with each other it just always worked. Also she fasted and prayed about it and when you fast and pray about something and the Lord says "GO!" then you go (even if it's something like "yes your husband SHOULD join the army"... I'm of course referring to myself here, not my parents, but this post, for once, isn't about me, so moving on).
And then it came to pass that they got married, and dad wore an awful white tuxedo (it was the 70's...) and then he worked in a cheese factory, and then mom fought an earthquake with a frying pan (true story), and then they brought 5 of the strangest people into this world, and then they drove a Ford Aerostar until it died, and then dad made an abrupt exit, stage right, and well here we are now.
Here's an old picture of dad with the, arguably, 2 strangest of the 5:
(it's my favorite of my dad and my brothers)
In closing, a couple pieces of music that whisper "Dad" to my soul (the man taught me everything I know about classical music, and that's not a small amount, if I may say so myself. Although my knowledge of it doesn't even scratch the surface of what he knew):
Happy birthday Dad! Or...happy...continuing to exist.....elsewhere.....day.....?