Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Dorine

I first became aware of my wife Dorine when I was 13 years old (she was 14); I developed a huge crush on her as the result of seeing her at a church activity (we were in separate wards, but they met at the same building). I did write her a stupid "you don't know me, but" letter, and we talked a few times; however, I never took her out, and eventually I became interested in other girls as I entered and proceeded through high school. Dorine attended a different high school and, in any case, was a year ahead of me in school. Thus she graduated in 1976 and I knew nothing more about her until 1978, when I heard she'd married a non-Mormon fellow she'd been dating. She had her first baby, Kristy, late that year -- coincidentally, on the same day I received my "call" to serve a church mission in Chile.


When I returned to the U.S. at the end of 1980, my mother made sure I had a dental appointment (since I hadn't had any dental care in the preceding two years) before I went back to college. It turned out that Dorine was working at the time for our family dentist, Dr. John Eilar, and I remember her greeting me in a friendly manner when I went in. She had a second daughter, Heidi, later in 1981, but in 1983 her world was turned upside down when her husband Rick suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 26. Worse still, in early 1984 Heidi was diagnosed with leukemia and started a three-year regimen of chemotherapy at the University of New Mexico Hospital's pediatric oncology clinic.

I had gone back to BYU for three semesters after my mission, but I finally tired of being away from home (my weekend job as a respiratory equipment tech at Utah Valley Hospital, which had me working 12-hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays, wasn't helping my morale or my social life). My last semester there (Winter 1982), I ended up taking 12 credit hours -- versus the 15 that I knew I needed to keep my scholarship -- sensing subconsciously that I needed to return to Albuquerque. After I got back, I attended the local singles ward for a couple of years, but none of the relationships or romantic interests I had there worked out. I remember that my father, who happened to be Dorine's bishop (she having moved into my parents' ward at one point), told me in April 1984 that he really wished I'd ask her out. Shortly thereafter, I finally decided I'd had enough of the singles ward and moved my membership back to my home ward.

It didn't take long for Dorine to ask me out, although I was still pretty uncertain about the whole deal. (Whereas Dorine had been my ideal for at least a couple of years when I was a teenager, I, as a 25-year-old who'd never even dated anyone for longer than a month or two, at first saw nothing ideal about marrying someone who'd been married and had two children.) Our relationship proceeded in fits and starts for several months, through the summer of 1984, although I gradually warmed back up to her; I remember her visible relief when we finally started necking after our dates. Perhaps wanting to spur me into action, she accepted a date with someone else sometime in September, and the two of us, facing a choice between breaking up and getting married, opted for the latter. (Even now it seems like a weird way to get engaged to be married, but there it is.) A few months later, we married in the Salt Lake LDS Temple, and although I didn't legally adopt Kristy and Heidi for another year, church policy at that time allowed them to be sealed to me at the same time I married their mother. (It sounds funny now to say that my first child was born the day I got my mission call, and that my second was born nine months after I returned from my mission.) Dorine and I have now been married for over 23 years; to say the least, I've grown pretty attached to her in that time.

The first photo above is of Dorine as she appears now, and the second was taken in 1985, shortly after our marriage, when the girls were still six and three years old, respectively.