20 Years Ago Today…

It’s been over 90 days since my last post. It’s been a season of busyness and reflection, in that order. My focus has been to try to evaluate fruit and determine where I need to focus going forward. I have much to say on the subject but today I have a bigger purpose.

20 years ago today, 6:00 Central time to be exact, Kimberly Burger and I started a new life together.

As I sit here it seems amazing to me that it’s been 20 years. So much has happened not all of it good but all of it profitable because in the midst of it all we have followed the one who designed marriage. We haven’t always done it well but we have always done it.

Many men say “I am married to the most amazing woman on earth” I’m sure they are sincere but I really am, let me explain.

Our first date never happened.

It was my Sr. year and just prior to the Sadie Hawkins dance my long term girlfriend and I had “broken up”. I decided I would not go to the dance and had already declined a couple invitations. Then along comes Kim. She was, and is, always so full of life and joy and is impossible to ignore, why would I try anyway :-). After a school function the two of us were cruising main and talking and when I dropped her off at her house the conversation continued sitting on the trunk of my 1970 Pontiac LeMans leaning on the back glass which curved in like a lounge chair.

It was, and is, comfortable to be with her she made me laugh but was never “silly” or “a dumb girl”. There was, and is, substance to her something that draws you in. She still possesses that today and is one of the reasons she is so successful at everything she does. During the conversation she asked me to go with her to the dance and I accepted.

Later that week my old girlfriend came to me and said she had decided not to go to the dance with someone else and asked me to go with her. Being the loyal golden retriever that I am I went to Kim as she was on the stairs on her way to class and told her the situation. I went to the dance and Kim stayed home. I know what your thinking, what a jerk, and you would be right.

We remained friends and I still always loved being around her. After graduation I was home for the weekend we drove to the Pepper Mill steak house in a neighboring town about an hour away. We had a great time but I never called her again.

Fast forward a couple of Christmases. I ran into her again in our hometown and invited her to my parents house to catch up. When she arrived she knocked my socks off. It was the late 80’s and she was wearing a sweater dress looking like a million bucks. I had never looked at her that way before but suddenly I had a completely different view and it was good. So why didn’t I call her later? I don’t know.

The next summer was my parents 25 year anniversary I was playing in the band at the reception and Kim came and sat there the whole night so she could talk to me at the breaks between sets. I was still oblivious. On the way home my cousin said “You better call that girl”. I said “you think so”. I know I’m a slow learner. I did call and she came to the state fair where we saw Clint Black, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill, Joe Diffy and again had a great time. We continued to talk, a lot, on the phone and I would make the trip home as often as possible. One night sitting on her back porch she said to me “you know I really like you” I think in the back of my mind I knew and hoped that was the case but in my zeal to not come on too strong I didn’t come on at all. I still do that a bit today.

Sorry to ramble so much but this is my blog 🙂 Back to the title of the post:

20 years ago today at about this time my dad and I were standing in my back yard in the rain wondering what to do. It was an outside wedding and we needed to make a decision. The rehearsal had been rained out and our family’s ended up in different places not doing what normally happens at a wedding rehearsal.

We woke to more rain, cloudy skies, and dim weather forecasts. My dad who I love dearly would not be described as a church person said to me. “If God gave you the girl, the date, and the place, what makes you think he will rain you out. So off we went to the city hall to pick up folding chairs and set them up in the rain having faith God would work it out.

That night was absolutely beautiful. Thunderstorms, tornado warnings, and rain all around us but in Ainsworth Nebraska on the corner of North Osborne and 3rd street was absolutely perfect.

Kim has always been my greatest cheerleader, always believed in me, even when I haven’t believed in myself, and has always been my closest and best friend. I would not be the man I am today without her and I don’t want to do the next 50 or more without her.

Kimberly as long as I live I will always remember you this way. I love you.