Silent Pain

I was actually on my first approved date, and it was Timmy, the boy I had  a crush on since I was 12.  He came to pick me up, met my parents (which they had already met before.), and away we went.  He drove a old 1959 Chevy truck, which looked like crap.  It had primer here and there, as though he was going to have it painted soon, but he never did.  The truck at a bench seat. I sat on the far side, next to the passenger's window.  For some reason, he kept asking me if I was cold.  I always replied " no, I'm fine".   Years later, he told me the reason, he kept asking me this, is because he wanted me to scoot across that bench seat to sit next to him. I didn't know!  I couldn't read his mind!  We drove around, crusin' the drag for three full hours.  We didn't stop for anything, not even the Coke that he had mentioned. We were back to my house by ten o'clock.  He came inside.  My parents went to bed.  Timmy stayed. We watched music videos on TV.  I guess you could say that I made the first move by placing my feet on his lap. Soon, my Daddy peeked through my bedroom door, and said "Isn't it passed your bedtime  Kathy". Oh my gosh!  How embarrassing!  Timmy left, without a good-bye kiss.  This was on March 2, 1984.

Timmy and I continued to see one another and talked a lot.  One night, I felt he deserved to know, I told him about Ken, and the fact that I still having feelings for him.  He told me that he already knew that I had recently had a relationship with some Black guy.  He already knew, because his sister was married to my brother, and word just gets around.  I couldn't believe he had asked me out, knowing all about my relationship with Ken.  His parents knew as well.

One week after our first date, on March 9, 1984, he just arrived at our house without notice.  I went to the door.  I let him inside the foyer.  My parents weren't home.  They had driven across the Red River to visit my Mama's brother and her wife.  They did this often.  I told Timmy that he couldn't stay, because my parents weren't home. Suddenly, he kissed me, then told me he'd see me later, and he left. Wow! I couldn't believe he had just kissed me.  Being alone at home, I ran around screaming and hollering, as if Ronnie Milsap had just been there!  I couldn't wait to call Cyndi and tell her!

On March 17th, I was very sick.  The doctors thought I had mono nucleosis.  I was lying in my bed, when Timmy called me on the telephone.  H asked me to go with him?  Back then, that was like going steady.  I reminded him that I still had feelings for Ken, too.  He seemed so understanding.  I agreed to "go out with him". I didn't know it then, but this was the beginning of the rest of our lives together.

This is the first photo we ever had taken together.  I was barely fifteen, and Timmy was seventeen