so today during dinner…
My dad told us the story of how he met my mother.
Many years ago, in a faraway land called Taiwan, a young man saw a young woman at a bus stop. He went and chatted with her. They both got on the bus and talked at length and then went their separate ways. Upon reflection, the young man thought to himself that that was the first time he’d had such a nice conversation with a girl and that she was very pretty.
Several years later, the young woman’s brother tried to set her up with a man he knew from the Marines. After finding out more about the man, she agreed to meet him and they began dating. For their first date, they went to a park with a museum. There were plants and flowers and artwork. The young woman was an artist and the young man enjoyed looking at art.
After dating for some time, the young man moved five hours north from Kaohsiung to Taipei, leaving behind his family and well-paying job to be with his girlfriend. For the first two months, he couldn’t find a job. There was a job selling children’s tapes but he decided not to take it. He found another job selling vacuum cleaners but that didn’t work out either.
Then he started selling copy machines. They were very expensive at the time. Every morning, he would bring his heavy copy machine to the top floor of a business tower and work his way down, knocking on every door. By the end of two months, it seemed he’d been to every office in Taipei. During his first month, he didn’t sell a single machine. During his second month, he sold one copy machine. It was very exciting. But when he returned to collect payment, he found the office empty. They had taken the copy machine and left. So he didn’t get paid.
Finally, his friend from school set him up with an interview at a shipping company. The young man got the job and for the next few years had a steady job and a fair salary. One day, the young woman realized that her boyfriend was the young man she’d met years before at a bus stop. She asked her boyfriend about it and he remembered that day and remembered the pretty girl he’d talked to. They were very happy and considered it God’s providence.
After the man’s second year in Taipei, the couple was married. And a year after that they moved to America, where they had two daughters, Emily and Rose.
Just kidding, Joyce and Melody.
