As humans it is our instinct to love and want to be loved back. Henry David Thoreau put it best when he said, "There is no remedy to love, but to love more." Every movie, book, song, television show, and advertisement seems to have a romantic aspect to it. We're surrounded by this idea that we deserve a big spectacle from someone confessing their love to us, but, no offense to Nicholas Sparks (I'm a big fan--I swear), it hardly ever happens like that. We get these ideas in our head that if our love story isn't like a fairytale then it's not a love story at all.
I know this, because that's how I used think about love. I'm a hopeless romantic, such a hopeless romantic that I have basically watched the entire romance section of movies on Netflix and read more Nicholas Sparks book than I would like to admit. I am a sucker for a good, cheesy love story. So it shouldn't be a surprise when I say that I thought when I found, "the one" there would be this enormous fireworks show or this unbelievable sign from above. Yeah, no. That's not how it works. But, I thought this way until I heard a new love story, my favorite love story now, about what it means to find, "the one" and why it is so important.
My great-grandma, Granny Frieda as we call her, is 94 years old and she and my great-grandpa, Papa Herman as we called him, were married for 65 years 11 months and 10 days. Even ten years after my Papa's passing, my Granny still remembers every detail of their love story. It's not out of the ordinary and nothing like the great romantic novelists write about today, but I think that's what makes it so special. It's real.
The year was 1936, my Granny Frieda was just a freshman in high school when she caught the eye of a recent high school graduate, my Papa, Herman Jones, and for him it was love at first sight. She was four years younger, but that didn't matter to him.
"I remember the first time he called. I was only 15 at the time, so when he asked if I could go to the picture show with him I had to tell him, 'Well lemme go ask my Mama first,'" Granny Frieda said.
She had seen him around before and her Mama knew his family, so she agreed to let her go to the picture show with him. When he picked her up there were two other boys in the car with him, his cousin and his best friend. Soon she learned that it wasn't even Herman who called to ask her out, but it was his best friend, because Herman was too nervous. Granny Frieda can't remember what they saw at the picture show when I asked her, but she laughed as she told me, "I only remember I had a great time with him."
She continues the story with what happened the following weekend after their picture show outing.
"My best friend Tracey and I went to the picture show that Sunday afternoon after church. When I came home my Mama told me that some boy was waiting for me this afternoon, still dressed in his Sunday best. Apparently, Herman had come by to see me right after church, but I wasn't home. That should have been his first indication that he had to call first, because I wasn't waiting around for him. To be honest, I didn't really think anything of the idea of him and me," Granny said grinning ear to ear.
Three years later, June 24, 1939 the two were married. He was 21 and she was 17, Granny can still remember the details of that day. 
Pointing to their wedding photo on the coffee table she said, "We didn't know that we had to get a marriage license and the court house was closed that day. Luckily, we found one of our friend's cousins, who was a judge, and he opened the court house to get us a marriage license," Granny laughs as she continues the story, "but, he thought he was going to marry us after he gave us the license and Herman had to tell him, 'No we're going to get married in the Catholic Church.' He probably wouldn't have been as nice to us if he knew we never planned on getting married at the court house."
They were so young with so much life ahead of them, but now they were going to face it together. Herman opened and started the Jones Implement Company in Cordell, Oklahoma. The two of them made a living by running the store and they had two kids together,my grandpa, Donald and his brother David. This was their life together, day in and day out, it wasn't glamorous, but they couldn't have lived more happily ever after.
Saturday nights, those were the times my Granny said were some of the happiest memories.
"Herman would come home from the store and say, 'Get dressed we're going out!' So we would get all dressed up and drive into the city where we would have a very nice dinner just the two of us. Of course, living in a small town area there was always someone who knew us and they would always ask us, 'What're y'all celebrating?' They would never believe Herman when he would say, 'Nothing! Just a Saturday night out together.' We didn't need a reason to celebrate, we were together and that was enough. I miss him so much," she told me while a tear slowly rolled down her cheek.
She brushed the tear off and turned to the picture of him on the side table. She stroked her hand down the side of the picture frame and began to laugh. Still looking at the picture of a young Herman riding a horse, she says, "I never knew where in the hell he got that darn horse or why."
I couldn't help it, I began to laugh. She turned and looked at me and soon we were both cracking up. Then, my Granny took a deep breath and whispered looking back at the picture, "Oh how I miss my Herman."
I looked up at my Granny and asked her the question I'd been wanting to ask her this whole time, "What wisdom or advice would you give your grandkids, great-grandkids, even great-great-grandkids that you've experienced in your lifetime?"
Her answer, "Find 'The One,' a person who you can share life with. Life is special, but it is even more valuable when it is spent with one person. No one should go through life alone, find your 'One' and when you do cherish the time spent with them, because 65 years 11 months and 10 days goes by too fast."
She is 94 and that might be the best piece of advice I've ever heard. Their love was real and their love story was even more special because of it. Sure, there were days my Granny said she wanted to scream and yell at Herman, but she loved him more than she had ever loved anyone. She knew that as much as he frustrated her at times she couldn't stay mad, because their love for each other was so deep.
This story has become my new definition of a fairytale ending. I want to be able to tell a story of real love one day and I think that's what we all should hope for: real love. We should all hope to find someone who makes Saturday nights the happiest memories, because they just want to go out together just for the heck of it. However, if you need your fixing of the grand spectacle of love confessions then pick up the latest Nicholas Sparks novel, I hear it's full of them. (Again, no offense to Sparks--big fan--I swear).
I don't know how much longer my Granny will be with us, but I'm glad that she shared what I am now calling a love story for the ages with me this holiday season. More importantly, though, I'm glad that I have the opportunity to share it with all of you.
