The Clincher

When Jon and I first started dating each other, neither of us were looking for anything serious.  We both hated the idea of a long distance relationship so we pretty much expected for our relationship to end at the end of the summer. 

It was our second official "date", I guess you could call it- or at least it was our second time we had hung out one on one outside of camp.  We'd known each other for about a month, and since we lived at the camp- we saw each other every day of that month.  It was Saturday and I was super bored.  My friend Loni was gone for the weekend so I was at my Aunt's house all alone.  I texted Jon and asked if he wanted to hang out.  He told me that he was going to head up to American Fork soon to help his family out with some yard work.  His parent's were in town from Minnesota, and they were working on clearing out some trees from the back property at their American Fork house.  Considering that my options were either stay home by myself and do nothing or help a cute boy out with yard work- I offered to help out.  He said sure and I headed over to his apartment to hang out for a little bit before leaving to AF.  We watched a little TV and well....we had our first kiss.  It was pretty good and the day was looking great so far! 

At the American Fork House, just after learning of the heart attack.

When we had just about reached American Fork when we got a call from Jon's family.  They had just taken his Dad to the hospital with chest pains.  When we arrived, it was confirmed that Jon's Dad had just had a heart attack and his family was all heading to the hospital.  I felt SUPER awkward.  I didn't know what to do.  On the one hand, I felt like I was intruding on a very personal family time and I wanted to leave.  On the other, I felt like it would be very inconsiderate of me to ask Jon to take an hour away from his family to bring me home.  I told Jon that I was happy to leave or stay, whichever he preferred.  He asked if I minded staying, so our second date ended up being eight hours in the hospital while his Dad had heart surgery.  His family was all very nice and I tried to stay out of the way as much as possible, while still being supportive. 

Waiting room at the Hopital- Notice my lovely yard-working outfit...

My favorite memory from all of this is the first time I met Jon's dad.  It was after he got out of surgery and we went into his hospital room to see him.  He was a little groggy, but fairly alert.  He looked around the room and paused on me- looking a little confused.  Jon's mom told him, "This is Jon's friend Emmalee."  He looked at me and said, "So, Emmalee, tell me a bit about yourself, and why you're here."  Talk about putting me on the spot!  I felt so uncomfortable, but explained about coming to help with yard work and such.  He didn't say anything else to me.  I could see I had made a GREAT first impression!

The tree-clearing project that caused the heart attack.  Jon is so buff!

Well eight hours later and incredibly starving, Jon took me home and that was the end of our second date.  Months later, when Jon and I became more serious, he told me that that day had been the "clincher" for him.  It was the day he realized that I was a keeper and someone he could see himself with.  Little did I know as I sat awkward and starving in the University Hospital for eight hours, that this day would change the whole course of Jon and I's relationship!