by Nordine Sanders
Our love story began on my best friend’s front lawn in Oakland, CA. It was the first day of my high school senior year. Late that afternoon we were sitting on my friends front lawn eating a cupcake, when a car, a blue 1938 Chevrolet coupe with two boys inside kept driving by. We were flattered at the attention of course. They finally stopped and that cutest one asked the question, “can I have a bite of your cupcake?” Now, you must remember, we were seventeen. They got out of the car and came over. The one who had spoken earlier, was named Rod. We found they both lived in a house about five doors up the street. We dated off and on for about two years.
Rod was just staying with his friend and his family. He went back to his home in the Central San Joaquin Valley near Fresno. For about a year our romance was “long distance”. Telephone calls and love letters.
(Oh, how I wish I had kept those.) Rod made an occasional trip by train to see me; he had to catch it about 2:00am, getting to Oakland about 7am or 8am.
He moved back to Oakland in about a year. He worked in a foundry in the city and lived in a couple of different “room and board” homes in the area.
Finally, the day came when he asked me to marry him. It was on New Year’s Eve at my home. My parents had gone to a party. My longtime friend and her boyfriend were over with us at the time. At midnight, he took me into the other room, took an engagement ring from his pocket and asked that special question. “Will you marry me?” I happily said yes. My parents were happy as well, but hesitant. Rod was born with a heart condition and his doctors had told him that his life expectancy would be around age thirty years.
Apparently, God had a different idea. Rod spent our first anniversary in the Stanford University Hospital having open heart surgery. It has always seemed that for us, each time we had a serious problem, there was a new solution.
On the day of our wedding, we made a vow before God, to love, honor and obey through sickness and in health. (The sickness part wasn’t so much fun) We have kept those vows for, going on sixty years, come May 19th this year.
