Thankful for a relief from the cold damp I climbed into the packed city bus. I squeezed past the knees which jutted out from the aisle-facing seats. He was there in one of them, wearing a red and black flannel shirt and jeans. He’d grown a beard, since the last time I’d seen him. I’d never seen him with more than a mustache. A thin layer of dark hair covered his lower face. It gave him a rugged appeal.

Months before, he’d wrecked his car, and I didn’t own one. In the jumble of his varying work hours and my college class schedule, our paths occasionally crossed on the K-Town Transit bus.

His deep brown eyes met mine as I wove my way past an old lady’s cane and a multitude of feet. I squeezed by with a slight smile in answer to his hello, making my way down the aisle to the standing-room-only post. Shifting the heavy backpack to my other shoulder, I worried about sweat stains, as I lifted my hand to grasp the strap. I braced my legs as the bus jerked forward.

He looked up at me and said, “Here, take my seat.” A simple offer. Was he just being polite?

My cheeks heated. “No, thanks.”

“Really, take my seat.”

“No, I’m fine really.” I didn’t want to take anything from him. Despite the fact I’d been waiting weeks to have a conversation with him again.

He’d asked me out once, and I hadn’t responded. I hadn’t said no; I hadn’t said yes. I’d just paused, and then the bus had pulled up to my stop, and I had disembarked. Now here I stood three months later. I didn’t want to open myself up to him; I didn’t want a connection.

He was good-looking and willing to share his view of the Bible with anyone who would halfway listen. But he was different. And I couldn’t count the number of times I’d put my books down on the seat next to me when I’d seen him enter the bus- putting them in the seat not necessarily because I didn’t want him to sit with me but because I didn’t want to be open– inviting and have him walk past me to sit with some other girl in the back of the bus. Protecting myself from rejection to the point of sealing myself in ice.

I’d played it safe all through high school. By my second year of college, I was ready for an ice pick but didn’t know where to begin.

The bus lurched, and I tightened my grip on the dangling strap.

“Take my seat.” He stood and stepped away from the now-empty spot.

He wasn’t one to take no for an answer. People were looking. I had no choice but to sit.

It was Valentine’s Day. And I remember the scene 40 years later because it was the start. The start of not putting my books in the seat. The start of my life to be. The start of my life of love.

(Our first date was a week later. Three weeks after that, sitting beside him on the banks of the Tennessee River with his arm around me, I decided that this was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, but I waited a few months to tell him because I didn’t want to scare him away. I was done with half-measures and indecision. I was ready to invest my whole heart. We were married 18 months later. After 38 years of marriage, three children, and three grandchildren, he is still the love of my life.)