He was the first person who listened to every word I said and did not think that I was stupid or that my opinions didn’t matter because I was a girl. See, growing up, especially in southern Maryland, we used to come across that a lot, people thinking, ‘What would she know? She’s just a girl’.
My mother had lost my father when I was 14, then my brother when I was 16. She would go through periods of violent darkness when she drank for days to ease her pain. This, unfortunately, meant she would try to exorcise her demons by taking things out on me. It wasn’t very often that I had experienced kindness and affection, except from my grandmother who always said that she loved me as did God and Jesus. My faith had always gotten me through the darkest days of abuse.
Earl showed me another side of humanity. It was really heavenly to hear the words, ‘Tell me more’ and not, ‘Shut up’ or ‘You’re an idiot’ followed by a slap. He treated me like an equal, always supported and encouraged me.
I had a 10 pm curfew with Mrs. Hattery and he did get me home in time but in those 4 hours we had together we talked about everything under the sun.
Our third date was quite magical. We got deep into each other’s souls that night – it’s hard to explain. We were at the Tidal Basin walking from the Jefferson Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial and just sat outside and talked and talked.
His integrity, his kindness, all those lovely qualities that he had, came through loud and clear. My intuition about people is pretty good and I sensed that this was a man who would really be very kind to me and would also be a great father. Family was really important to me and, as it turned out, to him too.
When I came home from my third date with him, I told Mrs. Hattery that this was the man I was going to marry.
On our third date he had asked me if I was husband hunting and I said, ‘Yes’. Two years later I actually had to give him an ultimatum; we either get married and he commit to me or I would move on.
There is a small twist to this story; there was another girl – Libby. She was his sweetheart from college.
