The Hargrove Home

I quickly replied to the text without hesitation and told him I missed talking to him as well. We went from there and caught up a bit but our conversation was nothing like I had expected it to be. It was pathetic chatter between acquaintances instead of close friends. He told me he was always at camp and rarely had time to talk. Though he didn't ask I filled him in on my job at the daycare and how everyone was doing in San Angelo. After a few more texts were exchanged he told me he had to be up early the next day and that it had been good talking to me. It seemed forced but I was just happy he was talking to me again. Over the next month we exchanged a few more texts and a Facebook message before he finally returned to school for the fall semester. I knew he would be back in time for Rambunctious weekend but wasn't sure what day or time so I was constantly on the look out. I know I sound like a stalker (chick be cray) but I desperately wanted my friend back. I wanted to apologize and I wanted his life group guys to surround him again before he fell away completely. I was scared of losing him altogether.

I was serving sno cones at the organizational fair when I spotted him talking to some people from Chi Alpha. This was it! My friend was back! But he wasn't really back. Our conversation even in person was bleak and nothing like it use to be. I asked him if he would be at the first XA service of the semester in which he replied probably not. I knew it. He was slipping away. He was retreating back to this party boy demeanor and there was no saving him. He did his thing for the first 2 weeks of school and I left him alone. In the middle of my music class one day I got a text message from my boss saying that our AC was out at the daycare so I didn't have to come to work. I never got a day off during the week so I decided to text my friend Nate and see if he wanted to hang out. He had also been trying to stay in touch with Kaleb that summer and had invited him to his life group. Come to find out Nate had plans with Kaleb. I wiggled my way into those plans and Kaleb fell back a bit. Once he found out I would be hanging out with them he told Nate he could only hang out for an hour. PERFECT! An hour was all I needed to show him that I wasn't going to be the worst friend ever again. In my heart I knew Kaleb had every right to act the way he did. I was awful towards the end of the last semester. I wasn't the friend I should have been when he needed me to be so I had a lot of proving to do. I was right. An hour was all it took to get us back to at least a decent friendship.

We were inseparable again.



We picked up where we left off almost instantly. I did laundry for free at his dorm and he considered my apartment and roommates his second home. The constant flirting was ridiculous, too.  I mean really how often do you need to brush arms with the guy you like before they finally hold your hand?? Geez. On a camping trip we went on with Chi Alpha Kaleb confessed his love for me. Yep. Again, we were "just friends" and he told me he loved me for the first time. I didn't say it back for lots of reasons and I even tried to make him take it back but he wouldn't. He was honest. He was in love with his best friend and I cared deeply for him as well. It was official after that; we were an item. It was a while later before my feelings caught up with his but I did in the end find myself loving him as well. Kaleb never wavered with his feelings towards me. I didn't feel the same at the exact same time as him but he never took back those words. He simply waited for me to feel the same and that's part of the reason I loved him so much. Our relationship wasn't cookie cutter. It didn't go the way I thought it would. It fell into place at the oddest times but looking back on it all now I can see the beauty in all of the timing.



And the rest is history. A proposal 4 months later, a wedding 7 months after that, and a baby one year after that...we move fast, y'all. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

So to you, my forever Valentine, I say thank you for always going against the normal and moving at your own pace. Loving you is so easy and beating the odds with you is even easier. A few years is only a scratch on the surface of what our life together is going to be. I love you. 

February turned into March and we were both getting ready to go on our first missions trip. He was going on one with Chi Alpha and I was going on one with the BSM. Mine would take up the entire week of Spring Break so we hung out as much as we could before leaving. At this point we had no intention of dating and I was beginning to consider Kaleb to be one of my best friends. A few nights before I left for South Padre Kaleb kissed me. We shared our first kiss when we were just friends and it was a game changer for me. Yea he's pretty bold, y'all. I thought it was no big deal at first but then I went away for a week, came back, and I realized how much I liked him. He had been praying for my trip to go well while I was away and didn't communicate with me much so I could focus. We had one phone call in the middle of the week right before one of my late shifts on the van rides in Padre. He told me he had went to church that night with his dad while he was back home and that his dad had a very real moment with the Lord. Kaleb told me it looked a lot like his dad had rededicated his life to Christ. I could hear the excitement and pure joy in his voice. Kaleb was happy with life in general and though I didn't want to, I decided to stay quiet about my feelings. We met for lunch in the UC the morning after I returned from Padre and conversed about the kiss. We talked about what it meant but we landed on just friends once again.

On April 12, 2011 at 8am I woke up to a phone call from Kaleb telling me his dad had passed away. I skipped my classes that morning and made my way across campus to be with him. His friend Joey and I stayed with him in his dorm while he waited on his mom and step dad to pick him up from campus and bring him back to Kerrville. I walked around in a daze for the rest of the day waiting for Kaleb to call me and give me the details. I'd never seen him like that before. This was new territory for our friendship. Later that night he told me the story and the details of the funeral which a few of us from Chi Alpha attended later that week. He came back to school and everything was different. He was cold towards me most of the time and I wasn't as understanding as I should have been so most of our conversations ended in fights. I could tell he was frozen in time. He went through the motions with school and church and life group but he wasn't fully there. His dads sudden passing really shook his faith to its very core. The week before school was over he went on a date with someone. I was broken. I knew he shouldn't be dating so soon after his dad had passed away but I was also very heartbroken that it wasn't me he was dating. The feelings that I pushed down had finally rose up out of me and it was all at the worst time. There was no time, really. I was getting ready to move into my first apartment and Kaleb was getting ready to move back home for the summer. The night before he left we saw each other at the lake (those XA hang outs were so random). We talked about his date and instead of telling him flat out that I liked him, I danced around the subject for a good hour or two until it ended in tears from me and yelling from him. He sped off from the lake and that was it.



I moved into my first apartment and decided that summer to let Kaleb deal with everything on his own. I was getting in the way and I wasn't being fair to him. I struggled with this greatly. I wanted my best friend back but above everything I wanted to be more than friends. It felt like I had missed my chance all together and I was scared he was slipping away from everything. From God, school, his friends in Chi Alpha. I tried "dating" someone else but that was a bust from the beginning for many reasons and one of the biggest being how I felt about Kaleb. He worked at a camp that summer so he wasn't online much. I stalked his Facebook page everyday praying for a glimpse into his life through a status or picture. When he would post something it was usually about camp. I would see girls tag him in things and post to his wall and I just grew more aware of the fact that I really did miss my chance. I let myself fall into work and prepared for my first semester as a Life Group leader for Chi Alpha. About a month before school started I got a text message from a random number. I had switched phones a few weeks prior so I didn't have many people saved in my contacts yet. It was an area code I recognized and the single text instantly told me who it was-"I miss talking to you."







(to be continued.)

For our 2 year anniversary I shared the story of how we met and in that post I said though it may be hard I would try and share our dating story. Our dating story is sweet and tragic and sometimes it's not the most fun thing to share but we're nearing the 3 year mark of our wedding anniversary and just passed the 4 year mark of when we met so it's been stirring in me to get it all down on my blog. I'll split it into 3 parts because it's just too long to share on one entire entry.