Today's blogging challenge word is STORY. I thought I would write the story of Pentti and I.
We met in 1996 when Pentti came to Canada for a visit. He drove me crazy. I don't really remember why, but he seriously annoyed me. But, he was staying at my parent's house and I still lived at home, so I saw him a lot. He would actually stay up to watch (late night) Fashion Television with me, which is hilarious now. I kind of knew he must like me, but the feeling was not mutual. A friend of mine loves to tell a story about how she first saw Pentti as a grape went flying at him (from my hand) as she came up the stairs for a youth group party. Again, I don't remember why, but he must have deserved it, lol. Anyway, he went back to Finland and that was that. At Christmas he came back for a visit, but I hardly saw him since I was dating a guy named Peter at the time. Apparently Pentti had come to see me, but I guess that was a bit of a wasted trip. Poor guy.
I didn't see him again until the summer of 1998. I was housesitting for my aunt and uncle and he came there to say hello. This time things were different. We started dating. We went to see the movie Armageddon. We spent time together and I liked his company. But, he returned to Finland again. This time we kept in touch over email. There was a lot of letter writing, which is actually a pretty good way to get to know someone. He came back to visit in the fall, but since we didn't want my family knowing we were dating, he came under the guise of my editing his master's thesis. I can't remember whether I actually looked at his thesis, but that was the official "story". I remember my maternal grandmother calling my mom to say that maybe Pentti should stay at their house so that he could have peace and quiet to work on his thesis. Clearly she was in the dark. My paternal grandmother, however, was more astute. Even though no one knew what was really happening, she declared that she knew exactly why Pentti kept coming back to visit; "he has his eye on Annika". The family disagreed with her, that that definitely wasn't it. My grandmother would not back down, lol. Anyway, when we decided to meet in London after he'd gone home, our relationship could no longer be kept secret.
We had the best time in London. We stayed in the tiniest little hotel. We walked everywhere. We ate pastries and italian food and visited museums. We went to see Les Miserables. I feel like it rained the whole time, but I hardly noticed. One night he asked me if I'd marry him. I cried. And said yes. But we didn't officially get engaged then and sadly, I don't even remember the date. October something?
At Christmas, he came to visit Vancouver again. I'm not sure how he had so much time and money to keep flying to Vancouver, but he did. I don't know which of his trips it was that we were crossing the border to go shopping in the States and the customs agent looked at his passport and said, "excuse me sir, do you have a job". Lol. Anyway, on Christmas Eve, he asked me to marry him. We had picked out the ring together; knowing me, he'd never dare to pick one out for me on his own. But, it was still a surprise since we had agreed to wait until the new year when I was going to go to Finland to meet his parents. I'm not too sure whether his parents were happy that we got engaged before they'd even met me, but Pentti made that call, not me.
The rest is history, as they say. We got married in August of 1999; 22 years ago this summer. A lot can fit into that many years: multiple jobs, kids, cars, vacations, degrees, homes, illness. But looking back over our story thus far, I am truly grateful. God has been faithful and has so clearly had His hand in our lives. On our wedding bands, we had engraved the date, but also the Latin phrase: Deus nos iunxit which means God has joined us. I truly believe that. The story continues....
