The first time I met Emma was just after Christmas in 1976. Shenna and I were home from BYU for Christmas. Shenna and I had just met and I had gone out with Shenna twice over the Christmas break, our first two dates ever. I was really impressed with her, so I arranged to ride back to BYU with her in a used VW fastback that Ted & Emma had purchased for her to take back to school. The drive back to
This is where Emma comes into the story. Many people were trying to help us find a way back to school and we spent a lot of time waiting for things to come together. I got to really meet Emma and Ted that day. Emma, as I would later learn was typical for her, made me feel like I was one of the most interesting people she had ever met. In looking back, I suppose that I was actually quite unimpressive, but she would ask questions and seem so interested that I could not have impressed her more if I had been a world traveler, acclaimed scientist and renowned artist instead of a student with no major, no money, a part time job and pretty typical life for a typical student. Emma would ask questions and engage you in a conversation that would make you feel like you were something special. It had not occurred to me what a gift that was until the last few months. She was really interested in people.
It seems that one of Emma’s favorite pastimes was playing dominoes, and, while we waited, Shenna and I spent most of the day playing dominoes with Emma and “Oma”, Ted’s mom. We played almost all day! I had never played dominoes before, but I made up for it in one day. (It’s interesting that in the last few months, when Shenna and I would spend an evening with Emma and Ted, we would often end up playing dominoes. The dawn of my days with Emma included dominoes, and the twilight days included dominoes).
Shenna and I did find a way back to BYU and made it just in time to shower and get to classes after driving all night. Life was good. Eventually I asked her to marry me. She called home the next day to tell her parents and her mom was very excited! She thought it was so wonderful that Shenna was marrying that wonderful young man that had spent the day playing dominoes with her.
Of course it wasn’t really the domino games, although that probably helped her perceive me as a polite young man, it was her ability to see the good in me. All the conversation I had with her while we played dominoes together gave her a chance to feel like she knew lots about me, and I guess she remembered all the good things.
She was really interested in people, and she remembered the good things she discovered about them. A few months ago, when Shenna and I were having dinner with Emma & Ted, we were talking about some of the challenges we had brought into their life as we went through some difficult times, and Emma didn’t remember any of them. It was remarkable to me that while I thought she would be glad those times were long gone, Emma remembered all kinds of good times and didn’t remember the challenges at all. She had this perception that her sons-in-law were wonderful blessings in her life and it seems that anything I’ve done that didn’t fit that image just didn’t stick with her. So there was another lesson I learned from her; not only did she make us feel like we were interesting people, but she really thought we were interesting people because she took the effort to be interested in us and find things to like about us.
I’m sure glad Shenna’s parents bought that old VW that broke down 20 miles from home so I could spend the day playing dominoes with Emma so she had time to find things to like about me, so she would spend the rest of her life thinking I was a great son-in-law. I’m glad for her example of being interested in people and finding things to like about everybody she met. I’m sure it made her life more interesting and I know it made all our lives much more pleasant.
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