Our Courtship Story, Part Four

This is the next installment of a series I'm doing about our courtship in honor of our 20th anniversary this week. They're long, so don't feel obligated to read them! To see all of them (in reverse order) click on the "Courtship story" label at the bottom of this post.

I was dating lots during this time. It was so much fun! Before my mission I had dated only a handful of times, mostly girls’ choice type stuff. Boys calling me was much “funner”!

But Nels was quickly becoming one of my best friends. Periodically he’d call me “to see if you and your roommates have a ride to the fireside,” or something like that, and once he called to say that he had an extra ticket to the BYU football game, and did I want to go - DID I?! Of course I wanted to go! I looked back on it later, and wondered, “Who has an extra ticket to the football game??!” Somewhere in this time Marilyn, who had been watching the goings on, cautioned me during one of our trips to the temple together, “Just you wait until YOU fall in love with him.” I scoffed at that. But I knew she meant it - she still cared for him a lot, as did most girls he’d ever dated, and it still hurt her a bit. (By the way, Marilyn later married this AWESOME guy she helped convert, Chuck Whittington, and they and their children live in the midwest, still dear friends. We stayed at their home and went camping in Nauvoo together a few years ago.)

At the end of the summer as I was registering for classes, a weird thing happened. I was not planning to take a dance class that year but I was ½ a credit short of the credits required to keep my Pell Grant. I knew if I tried out again, I could easily get accepted back on the ballroom dance team. I agonized about that, because I didn’t want to get wrapped up in that world again. What was I to do?? So I called my friend Nels who would understand both sides of my issue and “cried” on his shoulder. He didn’t try to influence me one way or the other, just listened to and encouraged me as I talked my way through it. Inside, though, he was celebrating, because he knew that if I joined the team again, I’d be required to go to all the team socials and events, as was he. (They are for the purpose of team building but at BYU they are also designed to throw these single adults together for more eternal purposes!) Anyway, with Nels’ support that whatever I decided would be fine, (and his silent prayers for one particular decision!) I decided that I should join the team again. Sigh.

So there I was. Back in the world of dance. Same world as Nels. I dated a few fellow dancers that fall, but appreciated my easy friendship with Nels. I liked that I knew things about him that others didn’t, making sure that he took care of his diabetic needs, etc. Stuff. I’m that way. I love being on the inside, knowing things.

That semester he jumped into dance with both feet, more than ever. He was working himself into the ground! He probably had more partners for the Ballroom Dance Medals Ball weekend in November than anybody else, (20 medals partners, & 5 competitions, Frieda, you'll appreciate that!) His mom came up for that weekend; she was a dancer, and would really appreciate the event. She had been his inspiration for learning to dance. She had wanted to continue dancing but her husband didn’t know how, and Nels wanted to be the husband that could and would take his wife dancing. He asked me to sit with her and keep her company (while he danced holes in the floor with all his partners). Between the competitions, during the free dance periods, he always came back and asked me or his mom to dance. Me, his friend! I kind of liked being the preferred friend he always came back to. Then one free dance, a waltz, he and I were dancing and I found myself listening to the words of the song. “Could I Have This Dance?” by Anne Murray; suddenly I started wondering.... (A couple of weeks before that we’d been at a fireside, and I’d felt like reaching out and scratching Nels’ back, but held myself back...) Hmmm...

Saturday night after the whole event, Nels looked so worn out. I felt so sorry for my dear friend. So I made a decision. I invited him to come to Draper the next weekend with me to go to a high school play my brother was in. “You need to relax! Let me take care of you for a change.” He felt whisperings of a change in our relationship, and hoped. I was “just trying to take care of my friend,” or so I was trying to convince myself.

He drove me home on Friday, and we went to Wayne’s play, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” Afterward we went back to my house and went to our trampoline out back and talked for hours. It got colder and colder, and finally we decided to walk around the block to get warmer, ‘cause we weren’t done talking. Finally I let him go home. Little did I know he didn’t have any heat in his car to help him warm up that COLD November night. Brrr!!!

I needed to let him know how much I had enjoyed that talk. I deliberated, and worried over how to thank him, how to tell him how much it had meant to me, even though I didn’t really know what it meant to me yet. Finally I made a card myself, (back in the days before scrap-booking), and wrote something like “I really appreciate what a friend you are!” and delivered it. When he got it, he misunderstood it to mean,“I really appreciate what a friend (JUST FRIENDS) you are!” He interpreted it as a don’t-get-any-ideas kind of message. So he immediately backed off big time - just the opposite of what I was after! He was scheduled to leave for LA for a competition that next week, Thanksgiving weekend. It didn’t seem that there was going to be any opportunity to “say goodbye” as I was hoping! He certainly wasn’t making any opportunity for it. So I made something up about borrowing a book or something, and he came over for a minute. He was wearing that navy blue coat he wore often, and he looks SO GOOD in that color, but he was not warming to me. My heart was melting. Oh, boy. He left...

To be continued...