How my parents met each other

I always thought my mom's story about the night she and my dad first met to be particularly charming. My mother was a cocktail-once-a-year type of person…maybe a melonball or a glass of champagne on Christmas eve or something like that. But after my dad passed, my mom would ask me to get her a bottle of port wine every now and then. And when I would visit my mom, she would sometimes have a glass as we sat at her kitchen table, and my mother would reminisce about my dad and their early married life together…. things I was always eager to hear of. My father was in the 3rd Armored Division in WW II. And on one of his first leaves home, back to New York…he met my mother at a USO dance. And my mother told me; “Your father approached me and shyly asked me if I'd dance with him. I liked his manner, so I said “yes”. And as your dad and I danced…we talked to each other a little about ourselves, and our families. And when your father spoke of his mother, all he could talk about was how wonderful his mother was and what a fine person she had always been. “Oh! ”, said your dad…”My mom's the best! ” Your father just…had such love and respect for his mother; he just spoke of her in the most glowing terms. Now, this really struck me. Because my mother must've told my sisters and I a thousand times; “If you meet a man and see he has no respect for his mother…walk away from him. Because if a man has no respect for his own mother, he probably has no respect for women in general…and he’ll surely have no respect for you. ” And aside from the fact that your father was young, well-built and so handsome in uniform…listening to him speak of his mom with such reverence…I thought to myself, ‘Perhaps this is the man for me. ’ “ And as it turned out…he was. All their lives, my folks never showed anything but love and respect towards each other. Of course I remember a few quiet arguments and disagreements, and times when my parents were a little stressed out…but raising four kids, who wouldn't be at times, lol? But never was there anything but love and, perhaps most importantly, civility between them. And my mother was really a beautiful woman. She had a model's figure all her life, and was a very elegant dresser when she wanted to be. My father absolutely adored my mother, for all their married life. As far as my dad was concerned…my mother could do no wrong. Even at her most old-fashioned, lace curtained, Irish-Catholic kooky-spooky worst, lol. I sometimes imagine how proud my father must have been…out on the town with my mom on his arm, young and in love! The day my father died, my mom broke down and said, sobbing on my shoulder…”Your father was the best and finest man I ever knew. And I don't think there are many wives who could say that after fifty years of marriage. ” Love ya, mom. Miss you, dad.