A Love Story continued ...

Then the next school year began and something changed. You see while we were apart things changed with the other people in our lives. We began to date again shortly after the school year started. There was a significant weekend fairly early in the semester. The girl from back home came to school for a visit with several other people and we spent quite a bit of time together. She asked me to come back home for a brief visit. I declined and Jody and I went out to a concert the next night. That date did not go well, but it still turned a corner for us, at least in my mind. Whether she knew it or not I had decided to go all in with our relationship and find out where we were really headed. A bad date night was just that, a bad date night. It was not a deal breaker and made me realize that I wanted to make this work.

We began to see a lot more of each other. Basketball season began, so my time was much busier. Homecoming was the first time I met Jody’s mom. That moment could have gone better. Then my future mother-in-law took Jody to the Homecoming concert instead of coming to my basketball game. In spite of this we kept dating.

In fact the HUGE decision was made that I would go home with Jody for Thanksgiving. I was going to her house, meeting her Dad for the first time, seeing her Mom for the second encounter and I was to meet her sister and family. You could say I was nervous, the reason you could say that is because I was very nervous. Remember, the first encounter with her mom had not gone well and I was pretty sure I was being blamed for that, and now I was to meet Dad, older sister and nephews and a niece.

The day arrived for us to head to her house and we took off from school for the 4 hour drive …