Introducing Sara Beth Wald

December 4, 2010

I moved back to my small hometown two-and-a-half years ago, a single mom seeking to rebuild my life.  A friend generously offered me a job at her flooring store while I got on my feet.  I muddled through, but nothing in my education or prior professional experience prepared me to sell flooring. 

Little did I know the permanent impact that temporary job would have on my life.  There I was, standing behind the counter two years ago this week, when a curly-haired guy in Carhartts walked in to ask about refinishing his hardwood floors.

As usual, I didn’t have the foggiest idea how to answer his questions.  I took down his name and number and told him someone more informed would call him. 

Over the next few weeks, he kept coming back.  Suddenly, he wanted carpet, too.  I was oblivious.  I called him with an estimate, and asked him if he had any other questions. 

He had just one… Could he get my phone number? 

Somehow I managed not to pass out.  I was too stunned to say no.  After I hung up, I sat staring at the wall for a full five minutes.  We arranged to meet for “coffee” on a Sunday afternoon during my son’s nap.  My mom had strict instructions to call me when my son awoke so I could rush home. 

At the coffee shop, we laughed when we realized that neither of us actually drank coffee.  We talked for an hour-and-a-half over hot chocolate that cooled in our mugs.  I learned he was a firefighter.  He learned that selling carpet was my day job.

We fell in love over lunch.  If he wanted to get to know me, he had my lunch hour while my son was in daycare to get it done.  I didn’t think I was ready to start dating, and I didn’t want a relationship to distract me from my responsibilities as a parent.

I made him jump through so many hoops.  I tried so hard to scare him away with details of my complicated life.  I dumped the whole story on him in the first three weeks, assuming with each new revelation “this’ll be the time he turns around and runs.” 

His response?  “Everyone’s life is complicated.”

And so it was appropriate that exactly one year to the day after our first date, at one of our favorite lunch spots, he gave me a new pair of mittens.  I have no more excuses for avoiding snowball fights. 

Oh, and there was a ring in the left one, with his grandmother’s stone set between two Yogo sapphires – the stone native to the area where we met and fell in love.

We were nervous to tell my son, but we didn’t have to be.  He was so excited for “his” wedding.  My son picked out a ring of his own from a trinket catalog.  His is a yellow dinosaur ring.  We exchanged vows last weekend.  Happily ever after has officially begun.

This article first appeared in the Lewistown News-Argus and the Sidney (Mont.) Herald on December 4, 2010.