Penny & Tom's Love Story

Like me, my best friend Penny met her husband Tom later in life. Although Tom was younger than her, he bore striking a resemblance to Tom Cruise in the movie "Top Gun" especially in photos of him in his flight suit. After they married, they moved to Washington state to the small town of Ephratta. We visited them once, but I was so sick with a terrible cold and felt the worst I had in my life so the trip is still a blur. They have been married over 20 years now, have three daughters, Shealyn, a high school graduate, Grace and Sarah. Rhett has a crush on Sarah the youngest, 4 years his junior. He has a crush on Grace also, but she is the older woman by one year and he thinks she is too old for him.

Penny and Tom's anniversary was this past Tuesday. When Penny was here visiting prior to the funeral, she had said Tom told her they would never be separated for 8 weeks again! Tom stayed home to paint their house, house & cat sit for relatives that went to Ireland. Just the scrapping of their house was taking far longer than anticipated as there were many layers upon a previously not very well done paint job. One layer was even gray with hot pink trim! LOL So Tom would not be finished scraping or even started painting when Penny and the girls came home.

Yesterday my phone beeped at work. I went outside to check messages. I thought maybe Penny called me so I called her number. A man answered. I said, "This is Becky" as is my usual greeting. He goes "Becky who?" I told him my last name. Then he asked "Who is that?" At 1st I thought it was Penny's brother Rob. Surely he knew who I was! Then I asked if this was any of the B's or Jones'? He said yes to the B. I went "Is this Tom?" I knew Penny had not gone home yet. I KNEW I was not going crazy. Then Penny got on the phone. Tom had arranged a flight 2 weeks after they left even though he wanted to come that first week. He arrived to wake Penny up with a kiss on the morning of their anniversary. Awe. She said she was sound asleep, snoring with her mouth open with what she referred to as "the worst buzzard breath", but he still kissed her anyway! She woke up to her husband standing over her on their anniversary. Penny told Tom she would never be able to top this.

Isn't this the sweetest love story you ever heard? I told her he is a keeper. So I am glad I called her now even though she did not call me just so I could hear this their love story. When I told it to mom yesterday evening, she got all teared up.