Our Love Story: Part 5

Preface: If you missed Part 1 & 2 & 3 or 4 of our love story, go back & get caught up here & here & here or here before continuing below!

It didn’t take long for that first email to come through:

June 1, 2008

Kara,

Hey, how are ya doing? It’s me Derrick. How did everything go with the post-reception stuff after I left? I didn’t get back to my place until 10:30pm last night. When I returned home, I was excited because I got to hook up my air conditioner and get to play my new Play Station 3. My friend Jake picked the game system up for me from his work and I bought it off of him. My parents also brought me my MIDI controller (It is a keyboard/piano that plugs into my computer so I can notate music onto my computer) which is great so I can start notating my music much easier. I guess my parents car broke down on their way home so some friends from their church had to drive 90min to come pick them up, they didn’t get back till 1am. I hope that I didn’t startle you  yesterday when I asked for your e-mail. I want to make my intentions clear. I would like to get to know you better and I hope you would like to do the same with me No pressure added, just to get to know you as a friend and then see where things lead from there. Well, I hope the rest of your weekend is great and I look forward to hearing from you! God Bless!

DERRICK ABBEY

I responded right back:

June 1, 2008

hey derrick..

glad you got back safe.. and your parents !! wow.. they didn’t get home until 1.. we were praying for you guys.. that ya’ll would get home safe.. especially your parents with the car trouble they had been having.. so.. its good to hear that they did get home.. even tho’ it was really late 🙂

post reception clean-up went so fast.. so many people stuck around to help and they all had the sanctuary put back together in no time.. i mean.. by the time we had finished cleaning up the bridal room and the bathroom.. and loaded all the gifts and other stuff that was naomi and paul’s into mine and colleen’s cars.. they were just about done.. so that was a huge blessing.. because even tho’ naomi was very organized about the whole wedding.. she did not really have a group of people who had committed to help clean-up.. so i was a bit worried i would be cleaning up all night by myself.. hehe.. i got home around 8:30.. so not to bad at all..

i don’t know about you.. but i had a blast yesterday.. it went soo fast.. but i had so much fun.. (except for the tight dress i couldn’t breathe in.. lol) the ceremony went beautifully and even tho’ the reception didn’t go exactly as naomi had envisioned.. it still went really well.. naomi is my best friend in the world and has been for a long time.. so it’s so exciting for me to watch her marry this guy named paul abbey who she is head over heels in love with..

you did not catch me off guard when you asked for my phone number.. people had been prodding me all day to ask for YOURS.. and i was like “if he wants to be friends he can ask for mine..” hehe so i kinda figured someone would prod you into asking.. now i have to be honest.. i WAS completely caught off guard when you agreed so readily to ask my dad about my phone number/email address.. i was shocked.. most guys would have beat around the bush and slowly tried to back out of it (i know because several have).. but i was so surprised when you responded “okay” and went off to ask.. hehe you must not know my father very well =D.. as the daddy of 5 daughters (and 1 son – whom you know as the ring bearer) he has taken on this very hard.. sometimes even mean attitude of dealing with guys who want to ask him anything regarding his daughter.. underneath.. my daddy is the most loving.. gracious.. and kind guy you’ll ever talk to.. but if it comes to his little girls.. he can APPEAR mean at times.. hehe so i was very surprised when not only did you ask.. but then he agreed 🙂

i also want to thank you for making your intentions clear.. that takes so much pressure off of me.. and i would love to get to know you better.. you seem like a really sweet and genuine guy.. not really the stereotypical pastor’s kid.. paul has told me some things about you.. but i would love to hear it from you.. besides when i’m with paul.. that means i’m also with his wife (wow that seems weird to say) and usually paul ends up pushed to the side in our craziness 🙂

soo.. tell me all about yourself.. 🙂

what are your plans for this summer?

keep Jesus first,

kara

He went on to tell me about himself: “First thing and most important thing to know is, I love roller coasters!” He explained that ever since he was 5 years old, he had been obsessed with roller coasters – the designs, the makers, the names, the statistics, even the science behind them. He explained that even though he loved coasters, he was too nervous to actually ride one until he was 13 years old. His most favorite roller coaster was El Toro (and then he gave me a roller coaster database website that I could get more information on it from).

Roller coasters were quite obviously his passion – especially since we’d talked about them twice now! He went on to say that music was also a very important part of his life. He was going to school for music (and after hearing him sing at Paul & Naomi’s wedding, I knew why!) and he said that most of his time was spent in voice lessons, practicing different techniques, learning music, playing piano, and composing his own music as well.

I responded to his email with an email of my own. I explained that I really enjoyed roller coasters too and had recently been to Disney World – acting as a nanny for my Aunt & Uncle on their vacation there. I complimented his musical ability & let him know that music was a huge part of my life as well. I told him how I’d taken piano lessons for 12 years – since I was 6 years old.

And so our correspondence began. We asked each other questions and wrote long emails back & forth. Well, I wrote long emails. If Derrick wrote me a 3 paragraph email, I’d respond back with 6 paragraphs. If he responded with 2 paragraphs, I’d write back with 5. I was a bit long-winded, I guess.

We talked about movies, our current jobs, our family life, our dream jobs, our summer plans, and how tall Derrick was. We swapped babysitting horror stories and Derrick told me all about his plans to write a musical centered around the life of King David. He told me how he used to be involved in gymnastics, how he loved to golf, and how he dreamed of learning how to surf. I told him that I loved playing volleyball, that my Dad & I had marathoned the original Star Wars trilogy once, and that summer was my favorite season.

Derrick told me his “life story” – how he was born in Rochester, NY while his parents were on staff at Elim Bible Institute. They lived there until he was 7 years old, when they packed up & moved to San Antonio, TX, where his Mom’s parent’s live. They lived there until he was 11, and then they moved to Mill City, PA, where his Dad took an associate pastor position with his Uncle Jim’s church. At 14, they moved to Gowanda, NY, where his Dad took a senior pastoral position and he lived there until he went to college. He was currently entering his last semester of school at Valley Forge Christian College just outside of Philadelphia, PA.

And I in turn, told him my “life story” – even though not as “glamourous” as the life of a “pastor’s kid” who had lived all over the country, I was born & raised where I currently lived, just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. I was the oldest of 6 kids. We had moved just a few years back into the house my Dad grew up in – in fact, it was the house my Grandma grew up in. My Great-Grandfather had bought the property & put in the foundation for the house. My Grandma had lived on the property ever since she was 12 years old. My grandparents now lived in the smaller “apartment” side of the house, and we lived in the “main” part of the house. We spent our weekends in Deep Creek Lake, MD, where the same Great-Grandfather had bought property a long long time ago.

We corresponded back & forth for 4 days – and then I got a phone call from Naomi.

Actually, I got multiple calls from Naomi. We were all outside celebrating my little sister Ruby’s 3rd birthday. It was a beautiful evening, so the party was held out on my family’s pavilion in the backyard. This was before the day & age where we were attached to our cell phones like glue, and my phone had been left in the house.

Unknown to me, Naomi had called my cell phone over and over and over again, and when she couldn’t reach me, she started calling the house phone. At one point, my Dad happened to be inside when the phone rang and he answered it.

I walked in just a few moments behind my Dad and saw that I had 8 missed calls on my cell phone from Naomi, and then I realized that she was whom my Dad was talking to on the landline. I was instantly worried: what was wrong?

My Dad hung up (after explaining that we were in the middle of Ruby’s birthday party) and assured me that everything was fine. She was just overly excited and we’d talk about it later.

After the party, my Dad explained that the reason Naomi had called was because “a certain someone” was wanting to invite me to drive with Paul & Naomi up to his parent’s house for the upcoming 4th of July weekend. I was shocked. I mean, we had been emailing back & forth for less than a week, and he was already trying to arrange a time for us to see each other again? My Dad said that we would talk about it & think about it – but the “certain someone” really needed to be the one to make the invitation, not Naomi.

I called Naomi back after the party and she was too excited to contain herself:

“I’m sorry! I was just so excited to hear that Derrick wanted to invite you to come along, I just had to call & tell you!”

“How do you even know that’s his plan?”

“He called Paul this evening! He asked if we were planning to come visit his parents over the 4th of July, and then asked if we might be okay with a passenger tagging along! Of course, we said yes! How fun would that be?! Think about it: we could spend the whole weekend together!!”

I laughed, “Umm, Mrs. Abbey, are you forgetting about Mr. Abbey? That dude you married just last week? You’ll probably have to pay some attention to him as well!”

“Who? Paul? Pfft, nahhh,” she laughed, teasing, “Well, I guess I could spend some time with Paul while you are off spending some time with this ‘person’ who wants you to come up there.”

I wrote Derrick that night and mentioned that Naomi had called.

He instantly wrote back: “So, what’s my brother asking ya about the 4th of July thing before I even get a chance!” He explained that it had literally been a matter of hours between him talking to his parents to get their thoughts on me coming along for the 4th, him calling Paul to double check that they were planning to make the trip up, and Naomi blowing up my phone to spill the beans. He assured me that his parents would be thrilled to have me come along and he thought it would be fun because we could all hang out together. He ended by saying, “I REALLY hope that you can come, it will be a great time!”

Shortly afterward, Derrick composed an email to my parents. He explained his “plan”, how Paul & Naomi would be traveling to his parent’s for the 4th of July weekend and he would be as well. He explained that he thought it would be a fun and easy way to get to know each other a little bit better, in a friendly, family environment. He said that he had already talked with his parents & Paul & Naomi about this plan, and they were all in favor. Now, he was asking their permission for me to come.

He was straight-forward & honest. And then, we just had to wait for my Mom & Dad to make a decision.

We continued emailing, telling each other stories about our childhoods, Derrick would feed me little roller coaster facts & “quiz” me on my roller coaster knowledge (which wasn’t very vast, I got most of my answers from Google), and I’d tell him about my crazy days at KFC.

About a week after Derrick’s email to my parents, I approached my Mom & Dad to ask their thoughts on the whole 4th of July trip. We talked for a long time, weighing the pros & cons (the biggest “cons” we could come up with were: my parents truly did not know the Abbey’s at all & were completely unsure of what they were sending their daughter into and that this was Paul & Naomi’s first trip to visit his parents after the wedding, shouldn’t I leave them alone & let them have a nice weekend with his family post-wedding?) We talked about the potential outcomes of the trip and how I would approach certain circumstances.

In the end, my Dad’s decision was: if I felt I could go & be completely open to anything (good or bad), to not be committing to anything in particular, with my eyes wide open to everything happening around me, then I could go. If, on the other hand, I felt like I would instantly become attached, or turn a blind eye to situations that might not be good, then I shouldn’t go.

I wrote Derrick an email that evening:

“yes derrick abbey.. i’m coming to spend the weekend with your family over 4th of july weekend.. i’m coming sort of as an observer.. i know close to nothing about your parents.. and i know very little about you.. so.. i’m coming to get to know you better.. with my guard up.. and with my prayer being that my eyes stay completely open..

oh.. and i’m supposed to mention.. that my dad owns swords.. lots of them.. and he knows how to use them 🙂

i can’t wait to see you and your family :)”

And the countdown (the first of many) began – 17 days to go until the 4th of July weekend.

..Part 6 coming soon!