"It Worked Out Well"

Last Saturday, Scott and I had the opportunity to go out to dinner with his parents and three of his four brothers and their wives. We went to a fancy restaurant, ate some yummy food, and spent two hours enjoying each other's company and sharing memories. Most of the meal was spent in the brothers trying to top each other's tattle-telling stories (who crashed the car worse and who got off with easy punishments and who punched a hole in the wall and covered it with a bandaid and a note that said "ouch"). Scott's mom laughed and his dad shook his head.  It's the first time in probably five years that we've gotten together as just adults.

Towards the end of the meal, my sister-in-law Tamsen shared her memories of the first time she met the Fowler family. She talked about how impressed she was at the way Clyde and Stephanie were engaged in their boys' lives, how they took time to get to know her and include her.

I spent much of the meal sitting back and listening. Officially, I came last to the family--the last piece of the spousal puzzle for the Fowler boys, the last daughter-in-law, the last bride. In reality, I came into the family long before they met me in person and discovered that I was not just a figment of Scott's imagination.

Scott and I met at age 16. We wrote to each other often over the next several years. It probably seems odd, then, that the first time I met his parents in person was at my homecoming. I remember him informing me that his parents were going to attend with him and if I didn't want them to come, I would have to talk his mom out of it because she was a pretty determined lady. Since that time, I have come to know that "determined" is an understatement. I was flattered that they would make the time and the drive to come hear me speak. I had no idea what they looked like, but I knew the kind of people they were because I knew their son's heart.

For the life of me, I couldn't write that talk. I tried and tried in the three days I had between getting off the plane and stepping up the pulpit, but it never came together. I knew what I wanted to say, but not how to say it, and so my notes consisted of one Texas proverb and three names of persons whose stories I wanted to share. I've never been very good at auditions, and I felt as if I were auditioning to be part of their family. This was a role I really wanted.

When I stepped up to the microphone, there were dozens of familiar and friendly faces, people who had come to hear me speak. Sitting in the center of the front row of the overflow was my love. Sitting next to him, dressed in a pink jacket and somehow looking exactly how I had imagined her and not at all how I had pictured her at the same time, was my 6'4" boyfriend's  5' 4" mother. Looking back, she was probably as nervous as I was, so I shouldn't have worried. Next to her was my now father-in-law, wearing a goofy grin that set me at ease. Kind of.

After I stumbled through my talk, after we shook hands at the back of the chapel, after they'd met my whole family at the luncheon, after Scott had driven them back to Logan and then come back to Richmond, after the crowds had cleared and he and I went for a walk around Richmond and I resisted the urge to knock on doors--after all of that, Scott informed me that his parents liked me.

I got the part.

For so many years, I was an observant outsider. Scott would tell me stories about his brothers--we'd known each other for three years before I stopped him and said I knew their names, he could just tell me which brother it was that had cracked the joke. I have letters memorializing the birth of every niece and nephew from 2003-2010. I have records of their family home evenings, their outings, the triathlons he ran with Dave and the tennis matches with Bryan and how he tried to throw Greg's kids in a garbage can but they wouldn't have it. I know the scares and surgeries, when Grandma Fowler died, when Scott and his parents went to Tennessee for a HOSA competition and he placed nationally. I know about the blind dates his brothers tried to set him up on. I know their names, their interests, their children. I couldn't have picked a single one of them off the street, but the Fowler Family was already part of my heart.

Nearly six years later, I have become part of the family. Though I still feel like the youngest sister, I am not afraid to tease and play games and tickle the grandchildren or walk around in my pajamas when we stay overnight. I'm convinced that Clyde has given me more hugs than some of his boys--I can't help it, I came from a hugging family.

And so I can second Clyde's surprisingly short summary of their marriage at the end of the meal: "It worked out well."

Yes, yes it has.