here<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe truth is, Bruce had been assigned by his friend Phil Barlow to write the essay for a book, but he hadn\u2019t finished it by the 1984 deadline.\u00a0 Actually, he hadn\u2019t started it\u2013though he had good ideas. He thought he\u2019d write about faith and love.\u00a0 But how do you do that when you\u2019re a single, 33-year-old English professor who knows about love mostly from Edmund Spenser\u2019s poetry and Shakespeare\u2019s plays?<\/p>\n
There was another stressful complication.\u00a0 Not only was Bruce unattached, but he was under considerable pressure to find a wife.\u00a0 The perception was that he wouldn\u2019t pass his third-year (continuing status)\u00a0review if he were single.\u00a0 In fact, our department Chair had sent him a birthday card in November: \u201cPlease get married!\u00a0 We want to keep you!\u201d<\/p>\n
It felt to Bruce as though he had been told that he could keep his wonderful job\u2013if he would first simply go to the moon.<\/p>\n
And then, there I was, standing at his door and saying, \u201cHi.\u00a0 Wanna go to the moon?\u201d<\/p>\n
No, it wasn\u2019t quite that easy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was already in his class, a soul-bruised divorcee trying to adjust to\u00a0her own single status and to deal with a legion of new insecurities.\u00a0 Primarily, I thought I was torturously ugly.\u00a0 This perception had been enhanced by my previous husband\u2019s frequent statements that I was, in fact, \u201chideous looking.\u201d\u00a0 (Don\u2019t be too hard on him.\u00a0 He had his own issues.)\u00a0 My failure to be beautiful was attributable to one thing, which is true to this day: I am a redhead. A real one.\u00a0 Most real redheads have invisible eyelashes and eyebrows.\u00a0 Our eyes look naked without mascara.<\/p>\n
I recall\u00a0an event in my teens: my post-surgery, drugged-up\u00a0reaction\u00a0to seeing a bottle attached to my stomach, gathering bile from my liver.\u00a0 I had just had my gall bladder removed.\u00a0 I looked at the bottle, saw that it was now connected to me and thought, \u201cWell.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve grown a bottle.\u00a0 I guess I can live with that.\u00a0 Only\u2026 what do I do when I get married?\u00a0 Maybe I can get a fancy lace purse and put it in that.\u00a0Yeah, that\u2019ll work.\u00a0What about my wedding night?\u201d<\/p>\n
That foggy moment was equaled by the very real fear that my husband, whoever he was, would see me without makeup and would bolt.\u00a0 Indeed, when I revealed my unadorned eyes to my first husband, my fears were realized.<\/p>\n
So, in 1984 as I sat in the front row of Professor Young\u2019s literary criticism class, I wore false eyelashes.\u00a0 I wanted no hint of what I really looked like.\u00a0 I was terrified that I would fail his class (which was absurdly difficult) just as I had failed in my marriage.\u00a0 My insecurities made me overeager to participate, sometimes frantic, desperate to please.\u00a0 This is how he describes me (back then) in his essay:\u00a0\u201cThe judgments I made mostly tended in the direction of seeing her as \u201cnot my type\u201d:\u00a0 bright, yes, even brilliant; but also too high-strung, confusing, leapingly intuitive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also (something he didn\u2019t know) subject to sudden teariness and to\u00a0pinching her eyelashes to be sure they\u00a0were still attached.<\/p>\n
So there we were\u2013a divorcee and a bachelor, student and professor,\u00a0talking about Plotinus and Matthew Arnold.<\/p>\n
There was one evening, however, when I was studying handouts outside of his office, and he was there.\u00a0 We started talking like actual people.\u00a0 He told me about his sister who had M.S.\u00a0 I wanted to ask him to go to a movie with me.\u00a0 Just as I was about to, he said he had a\u00a0meeting.<\/p>\n
On the last day of class, he was racing through all of the material he hadn\u2019t quite covered (roughly 1\/8 of the entire course) and I was trying to slurp it\u00a0in.\u00a0 I raised my hand and asked a question to get clarity.\u00a0 He answered brusquely.\u00a0 A few minutes later, I raised my hand again.\u00a0 This time, he looked at the clock, and then looked at me, glaring.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s your question, Margaret?\u201d\u00a0 My mind blanked, and\u2013oh yes\u2013those tears started rising.\u00a0 I wondered if I should\u00a0leave.\u00a0 I was at risk of breaking into sobs at any moment.\u00a0 I\u00a0could not bear a glare and its message. He continued looking at me with accusing impatience.\u00a0 \u201cI forgot,\u201d I said.\u00a0 I lowered my head as he continued the lecture.\u00a0 I took notes on every word, fearful that if I looked up, I\u2019d fall apart.<\/p>\n
He knew he had been too abrupt.\u00a0 After class, as I was rushing to a bathroom where I could let the tears fall, he touched my elbow and said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d\u00a0 I gave him a huge fake\u00a0smile and answered, \u201cOh, don\u2019t worry about it.\u201d\u00a0 Then I dashed to a bathroom, closed the stall door, and wept.<\/p>\n
Not much of a beginning.\u00a0 And yet, there was something about him which drew me in.\u00a0 I heard him lecture about peace making and I recognized that he was a genuinely good man.\u00a0 I read his master\u2019s thesis on George Herbert and loved the depth of his thoughts. I saw the way he treated my daughter and realized he was gentle.<\/p>\n
I got an A- in the class.<\/p>\n
Two weeks\u00a0after it ended, Bruce Young and I went on our first date, to see It\u2019s A Wonderful Life<\/em>\u2013hosted by Jimmy Stewart in person.\u00a0 (He had just donated his papers to the BYU library.)\u00a0 I held Bruce\u2019s hand and he let out a small gasp.<\/p>\nWe got engaged in March.\u00a0 At the English Department awards ceremony, I received a writing award.\u00a0 Bruce and I also quietly announced our engagement.\u00a0 One of my writing professors, Doug Thayer, congratulated me.\u00a0 I assumed it was on my engagement and said, \u201cYou already knew, didn\u2019t you?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh course,\u201d he answered.\u00a0 \u201cI made up the list.\u201d\u00a0 I gave him a look and he considered things momentarily.\u00a0 \u201cWait a minute.\u00a0 You\u2019re not talking about the writing contest, are you. Is there something else?\u00a0 Are you and Bruce engaged?\u201d<\/p>\n
The dean, Richard Cracroft, was far more exuberant. \u201cMargaret,\u201d he gushed, \u201cwhat a sacrifice you\u2019re making!\u00a0 How can we thank you?\u00a0 We love Bruce.\u00a0 We\u2019re so grateful to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon, of course, the excitement faded and Bruce and I were left as we were\u2013two very insecure people.\u00a0 And he still hadn\u2019t seen my naked eyes.\u00a0 What would he do when he saw them?<\/p>\n
We talked about it.\u00a0 I admitted my fear.\u00a0 His response was easy: \u201cGo wash you face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh that cruel gift of imagination! The gift that had let me create stories and novels had a sharp side.\u00a0 I pictured Bruce seeing me with my naked eyes, looking quickly away, trying to be kind, then shaking his head and whispering, \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t realize\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
I came to him, the wash rag still covering my face.\u00a0 \u201cAll right,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cLet me see.\u201d<\/p>\n
I removed it slowly.<\/p>\n
He drew his face to mine, examined each eye, and said, \u201cYou are so beautiful.\u00a0 I like you better without the make up.\u201d I embraced him.<\/p>\n
We began our journey on May 17th, 1985.<\/p>\n
Now, Phil Barlow wants an addendum to the essay.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure Bruce has finished it. So I\u2019ll add my own.<\/p>\n
It was a hard first year, but we gradually settled into each other.\u00a0 And that\u2019s how we end each night\u2013settled into each other; my head on his stomach, his arm on my back, my right leg crossed between his legs.\u00a0 We watch an episode of The West Wing<\/em>, and then each of us turns over, I facing right and Bruce facing left.\u00a0 \u201cI love you,\u201d I say.\u00a0 \u201cI love you too, \u201d he answers.<\/p>\nWe have raised our four children.\u00a0 Bruce has taught my classes when I\u2019ve been on a trip discussing race issues.\u00a0 I\u2019ve taught his when he\u2019s gone to a Shakespeare conference. We have tended to use literary figures when we\u2019ve fought\u2013the worst coming from me during our first year of marriage.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2013you\u2019re like Uriah Heep!\u201d I accused him.\u00a0 It was a cut to the core.\u00a0 \u201cUriah Heep,\u201d he said after an astonished moment, \u201cis a dispicable person!\u00a0 How could you say that?\u201d<\/p>\n
We have survived the deaths of two of his sisters\u2013one to M.S., the other to breast cancer.\u00a0\u00a0I held him so he wouldn\u2019t fall when the casket was closed over his baby sister\u2019s body.\u00a0 He held me when I woke up sobbing the day after my best friend was killed in a car accident. We have survived the deaths of his parents, and are now serving my father while his health declines.\u00a0 We have been stretched by unexpected turns and our children\u2019s choices, by our jobs, our many projects, our church callings, and by our travels. We are now senior faculty at BYU, and our former students are replacing us.\u00a0 Bruce is a bishop, and I am a strong woman\u2013confident and recovered from the slings and arrows which once caught me.<\/p>\n
What Bruce finished writing soon after our marriage is still true:<\/p>\n
\u00a0I continue to see, as I experience married life, how easy it is\u2013through laziness or fear\u2013to resist whatever my own mind does not make, whatever is offered from the outside, to resist happiness, to reject the feast of joy laid before me by insisting that my dark fantasies are real or by failing to act, as I must, to help turn my brighter beliefs into realities.\u00a0 I have seen, in my own life and that of others, how substantial that feast of joy can be when it is willingly accepted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
We have been to the little church where George Herbert, the subject of Bruce\u2019s Master\u2019s thesis,\u00a0preached.\u00a0 Herbert never sought fame, only devotion. His poem, Love #3, is our favorite, and expresses Bruce\u2019s\u00a0thoughts beautifully.<\/p>\n
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Guilty of dust and sin.<\/div>\n
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From my first entrance in,<\/div>\n
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If I lacked anything.<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cA guest,\u201d I answered, \u201cworthy to be here\u201d:<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Love said, \u201cYou shall be he.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cI, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I cannot look on thee.\u201d<\/div>\n
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWho made the eyes but I?\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cTruth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Go where it doth deserve.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cAnd know you not,\u201d says Love, \u201cwho bore the blame?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cMy dear, then I will serve.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYou must sit down,\u201d says Love, \u201cand taste my meat.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So I did sit and eat.<\/div>\n
\nBruce\u2019s essay<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Our courtship is slightly famous.\u00a0 Bruce gives his students copies of the essay he wrote about it, and I have my students read it as well.\u00a0 And then, to\u00a0boldly move it into the public blogosphere,\u00a0Rosalynde Welch wrote about it here. The truth is, Bruce had been assigned by his friend Phil Barlow to write the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1301,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,47,50,46,48,6,44,49],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bruce-young","tag-courtship","tag-george-herbert","tag-love","tag-marriage","tag-mormons","tag-rosalynde-welch","tag-shakespeare"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>Our courtship is slightly famous.\u00a0 Bruce gives his students copies of the essay he wrote about it, and I have my students read it as well.\u00a0 And then, to\u00a0boldly move it into the public blogosphere,\u00a0Rosalynde Welch wrote about it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n