Our Story

This is the story of how we came to be us as told by my amazing husband. Eat your heart out Nicholas Sparks. We are; however, accepting screenplay offers.

An engagement photo by Christi Nelson of Rawsii

I can't for the life of me remember just how I met Jamie. I've thought about it and thought about it and I don't remember how we started talking, but I do remember that my life changed the moment we started talking.

It was the fall of 1995, and my mom had just purchased our brand new computer with a modem,  a beast that brought all of the internet to my fingers and a blinding 28K speed. Mom also signed us up for Compuserve, the precursor to AOL. As I would paddle around the net, I came across this girl that made me laugh, smile, and truly got me. It was a connection that I would spend the rest of my life looking for and never could find outside of her.

That girl, was Jamie, and although she lived about 4,000 miles away in Indiana, she was the best friend a guy could ask for. Every morning I would wake up; log in, get a shower, brush my teeth,  check to see if I was still logging on,  and then before I left, I would read my daily e-mail from Jamie and write her back. The rest of my day was spent doing a little learning but mostly just thinking about Jamie.  In the afternoon, I would often run home instead of taking the bus because it meant I would get home sooner to read another email from Jamie or maybe even chat with her.

After a few months,  about a thousand emails, and hundreds of hours of talking on the phone, we decided that we should visit each other. After talking with our parents, they made the pre-Dateline decision to put me on a plane and send me to Indiana for a week to finally meet one another face to face.

Now at this time, Jamie was dating her high school sweetheart. Although I'd never met him, I knew all about him and their relationship through what Jamie had shared with me over our conversations.  It was hard, because by now I had fallen for Jamie, but I knew she was in love with him, and would probably end up being with him. I was just one more in a long line of guys that fall for a girl that they can't be with, or so I thought.

Time went on,  and Jamie and I sort of fell out of touch.  But it seemed that we couldn't ever go too long without at least a simple e-mail to check in on one another. Jamie married her high school boyfriend. After college, I started teaching high school English, and dated here and there. But, no matter the situation, I always felt like something was missing. I was always looking for that same connection that I had with Jamie.  I just couldn't escape this feeling that she was the one for me.

Then one day, out of the blue, Jamie called me. I hadn't spoken to her in maybe years, so I knew something had to have been terribly wrong. As it turned out, her husband wanted a divorce and was leaving her. She was so heartbroken, lost, and hurt. I didn't know at the time why of all the people in her life, she would call me. When we've talked about it recently, she told me that she knew she would be safe with me, she knew I would listen, and support her any way I could.

We talked a lot through the divorce. I did everything I could to support Jamie and to just love her. Not in a romantic way at all, but just love and care for her in a time of total heartbreak.  In truth, I think I could have given Jamie a hundred reasons why this guy was no good for her. But in the end, she didn't need to hear all that. All Jamie needed was a friend. Someone she could cry with. Someone that understood that it just hurt no matter what anyone had to say to try and make it right.

Unfortunately again, we drifted apart, fell back into the occasional e-mail or phone call during the next few years. But, I never forgot Jamie, or how I felt about her. I even wrote a play for the high school I was teaching at about a guy that was in love with a girl, but she was with someone else...bet you can't guess who my inspiration was.

In 2008, God brought the love of my life back to me.  I had just wrapped up an incredibly life changing year that I now know God used to prepare me for the months ahead. Jamie e-mailed me out of the blue to check in, see how I've been, what life had brought. At first, I wasn't sure if I should write back, because I was afraid to get in touch again with this amazing woman, this girl that had haunted my thoughts for the better part of decade, only for the miles between us to lead to drifting apart again. But, thankfully I did, and we have spoken every day since then. Jamie brought back the smiles, the laughs, and those feelings that a 15-year-old kid used to hold on to and hope would one day come true.

In our conversations I learned that God had done an amazing work in Jamie's life over the last few years as well. The pain of her divorce had brought Jamie closer to the Lord and made her stronger than I had ever seen.  She was more attractive than ever, and I was really having a hard time playing the platonic friend. 

But I sure did try, every day I would send Jamie a text, an e-mail, call her, and every day I was falling more and more in love with her again. After a few months of daily contact, I could tell that Jamie felt the same for me.  So again, I got on a plane headed for Indiana to see the girl that won my heart back in high school.

My first visit was amazing. It was like we picked up right where we left off the last time I was there. We hung out, laughed, saw the sights, and I left thinking that this girl was the absolute girl of my dreams.

Back in Alaska, we still talked every day, had a few more visits, and soon realized that our friendship that had brought us through the better part of our lives, was really the foundation of a love that could last the rest of it.

So I decided to move to Indiana to be closer to her and see what might happen if we lived in the same town. I sold pretty much everything I owned that didn't fit into my SUV and drove from Alaska  to Indiana. I was making pretty good time -- got to North Dakota in a little less than a week. But, my trip was cut a little short just outside of Bismark when I rolled my SUV four times after losing control of it when I hit some water on the road going about 75 MPH.  When it was all said and done, I had broken my collar bone, fractured my lower back, messed up my knee, had bruising on my brain, and air bubbles over my heart from hitting the steering column. I stayed in the hospital for five days and was released. That same day I got on a plane for Indiana, hobbled and a little broken.

And Jamie was there to pick me up, at the same airport she picked me up from 15 years ago when I visited in high school. I could barely walk, my arm was in a sling, and it hurt to move, but I hobbled to her as fast as I could and did my best to hold her, for keeps this time.

After a few months, I healed and Jamie and I were closer than ever. I eventually asked her to marry me, which was a whole other adventure. I guess when it's all said and done, and I think about the broken roads Jamie and I both traveled to come together, I can look back in my rear view mirror and see God's hands all over our lives and situation. I am so thankful for this beautiful, sweet, intelligent, and radiant girl that I fell in love with when I was just a kid, and now I get to spend the rest of my days holding her close, and just loving her. Only this time, I can honestly tell her everything is going to be alright.

Read more...