Two Heads Are Better Than One

"The world is a puzzle and we're two pieces that fit perfectly together." - Author Unknown

[Note: Our two youngest (homeschooled) kiddos graduated from Brigham Young University-Provo last week. The last time we actually visited "the Y", was just before our move to England nearly a year and a half ago…]

We stroll across the campus of our alma mater. Actually, calling it our alma mater is a little presumptuous since we never actually graduated. But lucky for us, we just happen to be in town thirty years later – visiting our kids who are getting degrees -- when we get the call that Dale’s college transcript is required to complete the Visa process. So, all it takes is this little walk and $2.00 to settle a dispute between the United States of America and Great Britain.

No sooner has the twenty-something behind the window handed us the paper, but Dale questions whether it’s worth the two bucks. There are so many starts and stops on that paper; it reads more like a bus schedule than a college transcript. We belly laugh and wonder out loud: what in the world were we thinking?! It’s hard to remember. What we do remember is that, for us, the final school bell rang when our first baby was born severely disabled; her care required daddy to carry four jobs to pay for the therapy that mommy carried out 24/7. To leave off school for her sake was the first crossroads decision we ever made—the first of ten thousand million
trillion.

Shall we try a new job? Do we pay the taxes or the mortgage? Is the opportunity worth a move to another state? What about another baby? Woops. Too late. There are so many decisions of significance in marriage that I shudder to think of making them alone. We woke up one morning and I was foolish but he was wise and then two nights later he was impetuous and I was careful, followed by six days of my emotion and his logic: back and forth, round and round, up and down: we balanced each other out and filled in the gaps.

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I’m trying to pack our bags to leave the old college town.

“Look at this hotel room,” I say, “All our clothes are hither and yon.”

“That’s us,” he agrees. “You’re hither and I’m yon.”