My Knight in Shining Armor

This is my favorite picture of my husband. It was taken a few years ago, while we were on vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia. He loves old ships and had such a good time looking around the docks at Jamestown. When I look at this picture, it makes me think of how fortunate I am to have so many good memories with him.
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We played together on the playground in elementary school. I was the only guest (his age, anyway) at his 6th birthday party. Sometimes we were placed in the same classroom, sometimes we were not. It was probably easier for the teacher when we were not together.
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In high school, we ate lunch together nearly every day. We stood together before school every morning, too. Our senior year, we even had the same gym class, and that's where the memory I wanted to share with you comes from.
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Now, just so you know, our gym classes were rarely co-ed. Boys met on one side of the gym and girls on the other. A barrier was pulled across so that we were not distracted by the other class. But, one day in late spring, for some unknown reason, our gym teachers decided to merge the classes. I should probably state for the record as well, I hate running. I am unable to chew gum and walk at the same time, and running and breathing simultaneously is a skill I just do not have. Normally, our school required all of us to run 1 mile every year. This was usually scheduled in the fall or early spring when the weather was cool. I dreaded the mile run every single year I was in school. Somehow, though, I managed to get through it. That day in late spring however, the weather was unseasonably warm, the sun was blazing down, and I had last period gym class. I was completely unprepared for the phys. ed teachers to announce that we had a special guest (an army recruiter) and that we would be joining with the boys on a mile run that afternoon. I panicked. I tried hard to negotiate. Nothing worked and I soon found myself jogging at the back of the pack of slender and athletic teenagers. For a chubby chick in high school this was maximum humiliation. It was no surprise when the teachers began yelling at me halfway through to try harder. It was no surprise that I was so miserable I was trying desperately not to cry. What was a surprise was watching one of the guys turn around and run back towards me. My best friend slowed to a walk and put his arm around me and asked if I was okay. His teacher began to yell at him to run. The yelling was ignored. He linked his arm with mine and began to walk with me back to the gym, all the while telling me it was okay, not to worry about it and that I was probably not going to be recruited into the military any time soon. It was the first and only time I ever left a class without permission, his too.
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I know that it might seem strange, but of all our shared high school memories, that is my favorite. He rescued me. Plain and simple. He saw that I was struggling. He saw that I was miserable. He saw that I was not doing well. But that's not why he led me off that field that day. He knew I was crumbling beneath the snickers and the snide comments of a few of the other teens. He knew that I wanted to be disappear. He knew I did not know how to get out of that situation, so he did it for me.
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All these years later, he is still as just as awesome as he was that day.
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I am so blessed!

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