If you missed Part 1- Our Love Story. Part 2- Our Love Story Part 3- Our Love Story Part 4- Our Love Story catch up here before reading this post!
Ashton and I had driven to the PO office together so our kind PO officer gave us permission for Ashton to take me home but if after an hour we were seen together he could do nothing to protect Ashton.
The drive back to his parent’s home was horrible. Up till this point Ashton had always been so positive and encouraging and didn’t let much of what had happened affect him. But this last threat hurt him deep. He was quiet for a while, then he vented a little.
” WHAT ON EARTH is wrong with your dad???” I wanted to cry. “I have no idea. I have wondered that more times than I could count.” “He is literally going to ruin my life to keep us apart isn’t he?” I didn’t answer because I knew he was right. For the first time I had a hatred for my dad that I never knew before. I felt like this was the end, there was no way Ash would put himself on the line anymore for us to be together.
Most of the way home was just in silence. I looked out the window at the dry red dirt fields as they went by. “This is it”, I thought, “If dad truly did win at keeping us apart, I will leave Ash forever but I will never go home again to my family”. I felt they betrayed me. I felt my brothers turned their backs on me. They sided with my dad. This was the opposite of what they had always promised. I didn’t know where I would go but I knew I would never return home. I had some contacts through Ash that lived in Nebraska, I thought maybe that would be the best place to restart my life. I bit my lip hard…. this is so crazy! How and why would my dad ever put me in this position to where I never wanted to see his face again!?
Ash dropped me off at his parent’s home and he left immediately to go back to work. Those next few hours I was just waiting for his family to tell me I needed to leave because I was a risk for them, but they didn’t, instead his mom and I got on our knees and prayed and cried and begged God to not let this be the end!
Ash’s mom truly believed we were meant for each other. She is a strong woman of faith. She can pray with so much authority and it for real just scares the devil right out of you. Ash’s dad called their lawyer to see if there was anything we could do to fight it. I didn’t know when, or if I would ever see Ash again. The afternoon went by so slowly as we waited to hear back from the lawyer.
Around 5 pm, the normal time for Ash and his dad to come home from work, I was sitting in the living room working half-heartedly on some wedding decorations, when I looked up and I saw Ash and his dad walking up to the house. I looked at his mom, shocked, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. She rushed to the door to see why they were here.
We had already decided that Ash would stay at his property and not see me until we heard back from the lawyer, so seeing Ash on the porch now scared us both. Their home was right by the highway. They often had people park across the street to spy on them and the last thing we needed was for someone to see that Ash and I were on this property together!Ash and his dad just walked boldly into the house, his mom asked what they were doing, and his dad said, “Our lawyer was able to get in with a judge this afternoon and get the paperwork corrected from 28, back to 18.”
Ash looked at me standing far across the room as possible, I had been scared the minute he walked in because I was not going to be the reason he went back to prison. He gave me the sweetest smile and in his own words he said “We are all good, baby! Your dad hasn’t won yet!”
There were tears and songs of praise to God! Never, with all of the stuff Ash’s family had been through, had they ever been able to get anything done so fast or have anyone in the court systems do anything but fail them. My future mom-in-law said, “Today you have witnessed a miracle. If anyone ever tries to tell you that you two are not meant for each other and that God did not want this, then you remember back to this day. Today God fought for you!” Back to wedding planning we went, we had two months till our big day.
We now were prepared for my dad to keep trying to break us up, so we privately planned to elope the day before our actual wedding, just in case my dad showed up at the wedding to cause problems. When I called the courthouse to set up a time for the judge to marry us, they told us we needed to bring our birth certificates for the marriage license. My heart dropped…. all my paperwork like that was in my mom’s desk where she kept important papers. I never thought about getting it because of how I left. My parents of course refused to send it to me so I called my sister who lived just 10 minutes away from my parents.
Out of my 8 siblings I only had my sister and one brother that still stood with me and supported me in my decision to marry Ash. Since the birth certificate was legally MY document my sister agreed to go to my parent’s home while they were at church and get it out of my mom’s deck. I waited anxiously for her to call me and tell me she got it. The phone rang. I answered and she said, “It’s not here! Is there any other place that mom keeps important paperwork?” I said, “Nope, that is the only desk she has and it has been there in the folder for the last 10 years, she must have hidden it”. Now I knew for a fact that my mom would sometimes keep special papers from us kids in her dresser drawer so I told my sister to go look in my mom’s room. Sure enough, in my mom’s dresser drawer, my sister found my birth certificate. She mailed it to me. Later I heard my parents were pretty upset at my sister for finding it and sending it but legally it was mine so they couldn’t do much about it.
Oklahoma was in a bad drought that year, it hadn’t rained for months. We continued to plan our outdoor wedding but had to take extra care to make sure any candles or any decorations that might cause a fire were well planned. I hung jars in the trees to hold candles over the place that we would say our vows. Ash built all the benches for our guest to sit on. We were planning on 150 guests. The reception would be held in my soon-to-be-father-in-law’s shop. That was a job to clean up and get ready! Ash’s family put in so much time and effort into making this day special.
One day we had all been working hard cleaning up the shop and we had just come up to the house for dinner when one of my brothers and his wife showed up out of the blue. My soon-to-be-father-in-law met them at the door and asked what they wanted. My brother said, “I’m here to take my sister home!”
To be continued…