Our Fairytale Beginning

Once upon a time there was a girl sitting in her apartment alone, minding her own business, just doing her schoolwork. She suddenly got a call from her BFF who said, “I just met your future husband!”


The girl rolled her eyes and thought, “Yeah right.”

But she played along. She asked who he was, how her friend met him, what he did, his name, etc. She learned he lived about 3000 miles away; which only added to her doubt of anything ever coming of this. But her friend was determined to make something happen.

“Fine,” the girl finally said, “give him my email and tell him to send me a message sometime.”

The girl’s friend quickly and excitedly agreed and hung up the phone. A day or two went by and the girl honestly never gave the “future husband” a second thought. She had been out of a serious relationship for about a year now and after dating here and there, off and on, she was pretty convinced that she may never marry and have the family she hoped for. It was a disappointing thought but life doesn’t always go according to your plan and if that was going to be her destiny then she would find happiness in it. She had finally, after much struggle, come to accept this as her future. Not to mention, in that last year she had gained a lot of independence and self worth. More than she ever had in the past.

So as she carried on with her job, her schooling, and her friends. She was surprised when she heard back from her friend telling her, “He’s just moving into his new house and doesn’t have internet set up yet. He’s wondering if he can have your address and send you a letter.”

Hmmm, the girl thought, now things were getting a bit interesting. She gave her friend the blessing to give him her address. Her interest was peaked but she still had some doubts about his follow through.
Yet proving her wrong, about a week later she received a letter from him, postmarked April 20, 2003. The excitement at this point was building. The girl ran upstairs, threw her bags on the floor and tore open the letter. The very first sentence made her heart skip a beat. “On September 4th, 1973 my parents decided they needed more than just 2 dogs – so enter myself.” It may not seem that spectacular to anyone else, but that sentence will forever be burned in my memory. Okay, so you know by now, this girl is me. I continued to read the letter (over and over again) and just kept coming to the same conclusion; this sounded like something I would write! His humor, his love for his family, his overall perspective of life, it was as if I wrote this letter and was just reading it for the first time. I instantly thought, “Mariah might just have something here.”

I called her and we giggled and gushed like girls do.

I didn’t waste much time in writing him back. I wanted him to know more about me and couldn’t wait for another letter from him. It was on! The letters flew back and forth as we continued to learn more about each other.

It was so romantic. With everyone these days caught up in emails and texting, we were taking a step back and doing this in a more timeless and personal way. In fact it was the same way my Grandparents got to know each other. As John went into fire season I began getting letters on pocketsize notebook paper that was about 3”x1 ½”. They were yellow, lined pages that smelled like smoke. Since the paper was so small the letter would be 20-40 pages long. I loved it. He wrote to me while doing the “Outlook” shift or at night sitting by his campfires. Sometimes he drew me stick figure drawings of him and I doing the stuff we had been writing about – scuba diving, traveling, hanging out at his mountain home with the 2 “mutts” we thought would be fun to have around. Through an email you can’t see the person’s handwriting, smell their scent, or enjoy their drawings. I was happy the email thing didn’t work out. These letters were SO much better!