It is the true story of perfect timings, numerical milestones, and a lot of faith…
In the end, we met and married five months to the day. We moved to Germany ten days later
and we celebrated 26 years of marriage just this past year.
Rockwall, TX (February 5, 2025) – I usually like to send you words of education and encouragement from this medium but I adore telling the story of how Will and I met and married. It is the true story of perfect timings, numerical milestones, and a lot of faith. And I think you should know it too.
I was living in Nashville, chasing that neon rainbow and engaged to be married to another man. Our tale begins on 3/9 all while I was set to be married to another on 4/14 the following month. One day, while reading an article in the paper, Dear Abbey or Anne Landers- I can’t quite remember which, I came across a checklist to gauge if your relationship was toxic, or not. Ten simple questions to know if it was time to call it quits. Mine was; I answered eight out of ten. I can still remember lowering the paper as I told my fiancé it was over, and within one hour, I had prepared to leave. That night I decided to attend my first Nashville open mic night at a famous songwriter’s venue, The Broken Spoke Saloon.
I decided to sing a song I hadn’t performed since I was 13, Desperado by the Eagles. I was feeling sad about the pending breakup that was just three hours before, and it seemed like a fitting melody for such a tragic moment. As soon as I’d finished, I thanked the audience, and as I left the stage, this man appeared not 2 feet in front of me. “Can I buy you a beer?” he asked energetically. I replied yes and we shared a beer and a conversation. Well, that conversation turned into a couple more beers and a lot more conversation, and somewhere along the way, a handful of Hot Tamales candies we shared from the .25 cent candy machine near the front door.
When it had become too late for me to head home alone from such a rough area of town, Will suggested he drive in front of me to get me back to the highway and to my exit safely. I was not sure that was unsafe or chivalrous, but my naïve 23-year-old self accepted the offer, and out the door we went. Thank God he did exactly what he said; He drove me safely to my exit and then waved through the back window as he went on his way.
One day later, I rushed to tell my two closest friends, Ruth & Wanda, that I would marry the man I met the night before. I knew it was insane, I was barely just un-engaged, I did not even have a number or address for him. I just knew he was the one. They didn’t balk, they didn’t sigh, they didn’t laugh or roll their eyes, they did the only thing two friends should do. They plotted.
For seven days, we schemed our way through idea after idea trying to find out who and where he was. This was long before cell phones and Facebook so despite our massively creative attempts and all our efforts, all we could come up with was a desperately rudimentary plan: To have me go back to the saloon exactly one week later and see if he shows up.
So I did. And… so did he.
Little did I know and yet I found out one year later from a friend of his that they had plotted the same, exact plan. Go back and see if she is there. He did, and I was.
In the end, we met and married five months to the day. We moved to Germany ten days later and we celebrated 26-years of marriage just this past year.
I still have the napkin from our second meeting where he did write down his phone number. It is wrapped around one crumbled-into-sugar and now very discolored Hot Tamale from that first night and tucked inside a little memory box of our now lifetime of memories.
Guest column by Erin Kincaid, Founder and Clinical Director of Rockwall Heath Counseling. She holds a host of degrees in Psychology, Christian Counseling, Anthropology and is working toward her PhD in Clinical Counseling. Erin lives in Rockwall with her husband and son. Look for more of her guest columns in Blue Ribbon News.
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