The Wedding

This weekend, I attended the most wonderful wedding of my son, Kyle, and his lovely wife, Jesse. They had a tough road and I wanted to document their story. It's a good one.

Back in 2003, Kyle began to date to Jesse. He was a senior and she was a sophomore in high school. They were so good together. They were young and in love. I remember their first Valentine's Day together, Kyle drove to Indiana University of Pennsylvania to visit his brother and left Jesse home alone. The only thing she said was, "Have a good time."

Before Kyle began dating Jesse, he had signed up to serve in the US Army so upon graduation, he went to Fort Benning for Basic Training. When he completed that, he came home for a short time before getting orders he was being sent to Iraq. He was excited. He wanted to serve his country in this way but he was sad about leaving the people important to him, including Jesse. He went to dessert training. Jesse went to her junior prom with a boy in a wheelchair while Kyle was at dessert training.

He returned from that briefly and then was deployed to Iraq. Jesse was devastated but she put on a brave front for Kyle. In October, 2004, Kyle came home on mid-cycle break. As with many young servicemen, he got engaged. They were very young but he wanted to know he had someone at home waiting for him. She loved him more than life and wanted to have a family with him. Jesse went to her senior prom with a mongoloid girl in her class.

Kyle served a year and when he returned something had changed. He needed space and Jesse needed closeness and connection after being alone for so long. Jesse didn't understand. She thought all Kyle needed was her devotion and love. The more she clung to him, the faster she pushed him away. Kyle recognized he wasn't ready to be married and wasn't the man he wanted to be for Jesse at that point in his life. However, he didn't know how to break up with her so he began to treat her badly in the hope that she would break up with him.

After watching this painful exchange for several months, Jesse finally broke up with him. I was releived because Kyle was being quite mean to her. I was also devasted. I loved that girl. She made Kyle a better person.

After a few months, Jesse began to date someone else. Kyle did a second deployment in Iraq. When he returned, he learned that Jesse had become engaged to her boyfriend. It was his turn to be devastated. It appears when he broke up with Jesse, he was holding out hope they would find their way back to each other after he got himself together. He didn't approach her right away. And then several months prior to Jesse's wedding day, they began talking. He asked her to come back to him and promised not to ever hurt her in the same way again.

Jesse wasn't an easy mark. She didn't trust Kyle. He had to prove himself and prove himself he did. He was the most understanding person while she oscilated on her decision to stay or leave her fiance. Finally, she broke off the engagement and she and Kyle began to date.

For Christmas 2010, they became engaged for the second time. Saturday, October 8, 2011 became their wedding day. There wasn't a person in the audience who weren't thrilled to see these two back together again and married. Everyone knew they were good for each other and destined to be together.It was a beautiful wedding day and now they are on a Mediterranian cruise to celebrate their new life together. I couldn't be happier.

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