When I introduced Preston and Liz to each other at our favorite restaurant some years back, I didn’t realize I was setting in motion an epic love story! Liz recently posted this letter from Preston and gave me permission to share it.
BONUS:Click here to see the secretly spectacular and spectacularly secret wedding of Preston and Liz Palmer.
Here is what Liz wrote:
This morning I woke up and found an envelope on the shelf next to my toothbrush … It contained a letter from my husband and these earrings. The letter said:
Lizzy, I went for a ride after my meeting last night. Driving aimlessly for a while, I ended up at Hard Times Cafe, where a sweet, wrinkly old Native American Indian woman with a braid in her hair approached me with a small collection of earrings. Her husband was sitting outside on the curb making more by hand. I told her I didn’t really see any that I thought my wife would love. She asked in a way you can imagine an old Indian woman in her wise voice would ask, “What is it your wife loves?”
I thought for a second and responded with reserved pride in my cleverness, secretly hoping to stump (more…)
While I was at my mother’s home in Minnesota for three months this fall, I finally tackled a huge family history project: I scanned and organized more than 3,000 family photos, newspaper clippings and letters. When I came across this photo in an old, lovingly assembled albium, it took my breath away.
Frederick Henry Kent
The couple in the photo are my great-great-grandparents, Frederick Henry Kent and Augusta Osborn Kent, who lived in Huron, South Dakota. The above photo was taken during a family trip to southern (more…)
Remembering 60 years back is hard for anyone, but for Melvyn Amrine, it’s especially challenging.
Melvyn was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago. For his wife, Doris, it’s been hard to watch. But she says something happened recently to remind her that the man she fell in love with is (more…)
A month after ninety-six-year-old Fred Stobaugh of Peoria, Illinois, lost his beloved wife of nearly seventy-three years, he saw a notice for a singer-songwriter contest. He sat down, poured out a lyric to his sweet Lorraine, and mailed it off to Green Shoe Studio.
The people behind the contest were so touched that they brought in professionals to record Fred’s lyrics. They also filmed the whole process The result? Fred’s (more…)
Have you always wanted to meditate but keep on putting it off? If so, you’re probably also putting off being the best you that you can be. Witness this letter from a Texas man to Self-Realization Fellowship that was printed in the Summer 2011 issue of Self-Realization magazine:
One evening after I’d been meditating twice daily for the first six months I announced to my wife that I was going to bed rather than meditate because I was feeling so tired. Without hesitation my wife grabbed my shirt collar with both hands, and her face only inches from mine, she announced to me that I (more…)
As a romantic fool and a big sap, I love stories about how people unexpectedly meet and fall in love. This unlikely romance was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition. Click on the audio player below to listen to the three-minute clip.
A TYPO SPELLS ROMANCE FOR RP SALAZARS
Ruben and Rachel Salazar
This is the story of a romance that began with a typo. In 2007, Rachel Salazar was living in Bangkok, Thailand, and Ruben Salazar was in Waco, Texas. Their email addresses were nearly identical.
One morning, Ruben checked his email, and he found a note intended for someone else. “I discovered it said RP Salazar followed by two numbers,” he says. “I figured, ‘Hey, my email is (more…)
Last summer, my marriage ended. I didn’t want it to, but the gap between our lifestyles kept widening, and splitting up soon became the obvious course of action. I was heartbroken, but from the start I recognized that there was great value in my grieving process.
I’m sharing what I went through in the hope that the process that helped me recover relatively quickly may offer some comfort to others who are hurting. It took me four months to heal, which is far better than four years . . . or forever. You can recover from a broken heart. You can heal. You can be whole again.
I thought for a second and responded with reserved pride in my cleverness, secretly hoping to stump (more…)
Triumph of the Spirit 