A & J

Handed down by: Jeff Harvey

I guess you could say that Ashley and I never had that moment where we met and sparks flew, one might say we were almost robbed of the opportunity of actually "meeting." Whether you consider it a blessing or untimely, since as long as we can remember we always knew OF each other. We knew that there was an Ashley Hammarstrom or a Jeff Harvey somewhere in existence, but not a lick more. Granted, it's not exactly a fairy tale beginning to a long and happy life with the lavish and costly trimmings that we all read about, but it has turned out just as good.

We went all through high school attending the same seminary class, each only with one memory of each other; I remember her singing "God Bless the Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts at a Youth Conference thinking, "Wow, she can sing," and she remembers me walking into seminary one day with my basketball and thinking, "Hey, he plays basketball." As anyone could obviously see, these were huge building blocks for a life-long relationship. These were the only two memories that we would have of each other for about the next four years.

So years went on, I went on my mission and came back and the whole time we had not even had a fleeting memory pass through our minds. Even during my homecoming talk I didn't notice that she was in the congregation that day. Basically, either one of us could have fallen off the face of the Earth (sad to say) and the other wouldn't have batted an eye.

For some reason I can't remember whether it was Mom or Aunt Janet who told me about Ashley, although now that I think about it it was mostly like the two of them in cahoots. Obviously somebody was trying to tell me something, because on the very mention of her name my interest was piqued. I guess the memory of her voice won me over without me knowing it. So I, being as smooth and suave as I am, hadn't the slightest idea of how to approach her; just the thought of going up to a girl who until that point pretty much had no idea that I existed and saying, "Wanna date me?" was a bit daunting. Instead of diving straight in, I decided to wait for the cliché "perfect moment" which all of us know who have actually gone that route does not exist.

It was at this point that I believe God decided to intervene and I will forever believe that he had been waiting too long for this to happen and he wasn't going to let my indecisiveness get in the way of a lifetime of happiness. It all happened when church ball season rolled around, and of course, I jumped at the opportunity. Brother Whitaker had originally thought of me as a coach, but he didn't like the idea of a player coach going all tyrant over the basketball team so he went to someone outside of the team who knew the game. As anyone could guess, that person just happened to be Ashley Hammarstrom. This thrilled me to no end but much to my chagrin, this did not suddenly take out the step of actually approaching her and talking to her. After the first practice, two things were definitely decided, our team was horrible, and I still had no idea how to approach her. The only exchange of words between us were "Good practice," and, "Thanks." So for the time being, I decided that instead of going for the whole conversation, I would be content with blurting out, "Hey, Coach!" every time we walked by each other. Just as things were beginning to look up, Brother Whitaker good word that we could not have a female as a coach. So much for my slow-and-steady-wins-the-race attitude.

All hope was lost for a while, we continued small talking (and I mean SMALL talking) for a bit, but any prospect of something long term seemed to be fading from site. It was during a game night that Christina Brooksby asked me a question about Ashley and I acquiesced and told her that all I really wanted was a date but I had no idea what to do. After a night of talking it over with her it seemed the way to go was to play tennis. She played in high school and I at least thought I had an idea about how to play. And thus it was decided.

This was shortly after Ashley had returned from her trip to Germany and while she had gotten wind about this boy she knew existed that was suddenly interested in her. To no surprise she was wondering how this had happened and, despite being around me since the world began, who exactly I was. She had even looked on Facebook to see if she get a glimpse of who I was and while doing so she saw my picture of me playing basketball. Luckily for me, basketball was also a sport she liked to play so it gave me at least some points in her mind.

When she returned she came to our basketball games as often as occasion would permit, yet I still had no idea what to say to her. I just tried to play well hoping that maybe she would take notice and have at least a bit of interest in me. It was after one of these games that I mustered up the chutzpah to just ask her to play tennis. I used the excuse of being tired from playing basketball for stalling my pathetic attempt of asking her out. It may have been the most woeful thing ever witnessed by the human eye, but it somehow worked. I was in.

We went on our date and her friend Patricia from Germany was visiting so she came along as well. I remember I wore my black headband in hopes she would think it was at least in the slightest bit funny. We played for a while and even though we weren't playing a real game, I had my behind thoroughly handed to me. I had caught wind of a game night that same night so instead of having the night end early, I was able to get Ashley and Patricia to come with me to Tracy to play a few games and buy a little more time to talk with Ashley, though I still wasn't sure how to carry on a full conversation without making it completely obvious I was nervous.

As time went on, we began hanging out every day and our conversations flowed like rivers. One night, after hanging out, I had decided to ask what was in my mind a huge question. I was mostly quiet on the ride home because I was too busy making myself nervous to no end. We got to her house, I got out of the car to walk her up to the door and she opened the door to go inside when I called her back. I began to spill my guts about how much I liked her and how much I wanted to be with her. Understandably, she said she just wanted to take it one step at a time and I agreed. What I didn't know is that when she told me that she agreed to be together with me. I had thought that she said she wanted to keep being friends for now and we would see where that leads. This only led to me be confused my arm and hand holding because I had no idea where we were in the relationship.

More important than what was visually going on between us were the thoughts in our head. Unknown to the other, after about three days in to the relationship we had been thinking, "How will we make it work?" and ,"What will we do once we're married?" instead of thinking "Could she/he be the one?" It was so weird to us to not even consider if we were going to get married but to wonder about finances and other things once we get married. Since neither of us were sure about what was going on, we didn't say anything about what we thought, we just kept with our normal routine. It all came out after our first date.

We went mini golfing and nothing was out of the ordinary but when we got back, her parents talked to us because they had noticed how close we were getting to each other. Having that talk made us talk to each other about where we were in our relationship and where we were going. It was then that all of our feelings surfaced and we realized that we were feeling the exact same way about each other. Because I am so kind, I was nervous to even mention the thought of marriage so I let Ashley do all the talking and I just agreed with everything.

Unorthodox as it is, that is how we "met" and how we have come to start our life of happiness.