Missed Opportunity

Many years ago, when our children were little, a front cover of Redbook Magazine showed a newly married couple in their wedding attire. Not the usual pose and pomp, but intriguing enough that I clipped the cover and kept it. It may be here still, somewhere in my “archives,” if you understand what I mean by that word, but I wouldn’t know just where to look for it. I wish I did. I’ve been tempted several times to write to Redbook, to ask for an update on this storybook marriage, for the bride was on the magazine staff. On an early page in that issue readers saw a sort of side view of her in her office. It must have been on that page that I read about the couple’s romance.

Both Americans, they met in a foreign country, attended school together there, and competed with each other to be tops in something, grades, I think. They were rivals rather than heart interests at that time. If my memory is correct, one of them defeated the other in running for class president, one of them was the child of missionaries, and the girl was somehow connected with the town of Caldwell, Idaho. Perhaps that’s where her family lived at the time of the wedding.

Again, if my memory is correct, the wedding picture showed her in a long, high-necked, long-sleeved light blue checked or flowered dress with a wide ruffle around the bottom of it. She held in her right hand a bouquet of flowers looking as if they had just been cut from the fields. They were standing in a field, I think. Her left hand was holding his right. He was tall, dressed in a striking black ensemble, including black boots, I think. He had black hair. Her hair was blond. They both beamed with happiness without the least hint of really posing.

It could have been a year or two after that wedding that my husband and I with our children were leaving The Ice Cream Palace at Westgate Mall in Boise, with me at the tail end of the line, when I looked up and saw this couple sitting in a booth, side by side, and as if waiting for others to join them. Still beaming with happiness, by the way. I wanted to stop to speak with them, but my family were egging me on to leave the place. To this very day, I am so sorry I did not speak to them.

What would I have said to them? Well, something like this: I know who you are. I saw you on Redbook and read your story. I think you are a wonderful pair. Have a good life together!

Why would I have said this to them? Because they were worthy of such attention. Much better than running after a rock star.

♥