The Love of Joy

By

Robert D. Scott

Foreword

This all happened as I have written it.

I met Joy at college. We married when she was 20 and I was 23. We had 5 children. Over our 28 years
together we lived from New York to California.

We started with love at first sight and a most romantic courtship. After fourteen years of marriage she
wrote that I was the best husband in the world, that her 7 sisters were envious of what a good husband I
was to her. In fourteen more years she legally took all the money I was earning while I lived off the
earnings from my part time with a freight loading job. She also had legal claim to all my retirement
money, the paid off 5 bedroom house and was forcing me to buy a $500,000 life insurance policy. She
encouraged me to die so she could be happy. I was 50 years old. I did everything in my power to prove I
loved her but she told me I was so bad to her that my only hope of God's forgiveness was for me to
divorce her under the terms described.

Can you guess how this happened?

See if you are correct.

Chapter 1

I am Robert. I was born into a Mormon family. My parents strongly believed in following the LDS church.

As an obedient member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints you do not drink coffee, tea, or
alcohol and you have no sexual relations unless it with a member of the opposite sex to whom you are
legally married. You also pay 10% of all your earnings to the church and pay all taxes the government
says you owe. No matter which government it is.

I was born in rural Eastern Oregon. When I was 5 we moved to Arcata, California. When I was 21 my
family moved to Provo, Utah. I started college at BYU, Provo in 1976.

Joy was born 3 years after me in a small town near present day Midvale, Utah.

We met at a BYU student branch church meeting on Sunday November 13th , 1977. She was beautiful
and vivacious. We met nearly everyday after that.
We talked about all kinds of things. She loved listening to me and I loved listening to her. One
conversation we had was about the emotional roller coaster of dating to find "the one" who we could
stay with for our whole life. In the summer before that semester I had been in John Day, Oregon the
town my family lived in when I was born and I had brought my paternal grandfather there when he was
about to die from cancer. I stayed in John Day after his death earning a little money and getting my
grandma settled in to her place in John Day.

I had dated a couple girl while in John Day and one of the Mormon girls and I had a talk about finding a
marriage partner. That girl and I weren't thinking of marriage, there wasn't the spark between us. But
we jokingly agreed if by the second week in February neither had any serious relationship we would
discuss it.

I told that story to Joy early on in our dating and asked if perhaps now I had a serious relationship. Joy
declined to answer that and to break the tension I said, "We won't talk about it until the second week of
February." and we laughed.

But my heart fell in love with Joy. I wanted to be around her all day everyday and she felt the same
towards me.

It wasn't a serious promise to wait until February before I got serious about us and I didn't wait. On
December 16th, the day before finals we spent all day together. Its is called "dead day" because there
are no classes and no activities at all. This gives students the whole day to spend studying for final
exams. Joy and I spent all our time just enjoying each other.

In the evening we were in the student lounge building. We watched two movies on the televisions there.
One was It's a Wonderful Life and then Dickens Christmas Carol while it snowed outside. At about 10:30
the building closed and we walked outside on the beautiful white snow. We reached one old building,
the Heber G Grant building on the south side of the campus. No one was around it was past 11:30. The
grass areas beside the walkways were covered in about 2 inches of new fallen snow.

I stopped walking and asked her to stay right where she was on the walkway. I jumped out into a grassy
area covered in snow. I scuffed out a giant valentine heart shape then jumping in the middle scuffed out
a question. "Joy, will you be my wife?" I ended up in the period of the question mark looking at her with
puppy dog eyes.

Joy was speechless and I walked over and put my arms around her. I said, "Take all the time you want to
answer but I need to know right away." She said, "My heart says yes, but my head says we've only
known each other for such a short time." I accepted that in the moment because I knew I loved her and
wanted to spend my life with her. I also knew she loved me and I had confidence that when she slept on
the idea she would say yes.

The next day was finals so we each had places we had to be early to complete 4 or 5 tests. I was finished
by about 4:30. Joy worked part time in the library at one of two exit desks. I didn't want to ask what her
decision was in a public place and she didn't get off duty until 6. She was at the north entrance so I
entered the library by the south entrance, took the elevator to the second floor and walked to the wide
and open stairs near the north entrance. Walking down a little way and then sitting on the steps I could
see her through the bannister support rails from a position higher than her so even if she looked my
direction she wouldn't be looking up toward just below the ceiling where I was.

I thought I can observe her and determine if she considers herself engaged to be married. Someone will
act different, be happier if they have just become engaged, I thought. She did look happy. Later she told
me that a girl she had never met did ask her, "Are you engaged?" but from my observation I wasn't
going to assume anything. Since she was normally a cheerful person, having a smile wasn't a guarantee
that she had said yes to my proposal.

Finally as the time drew short I took a library check out slip and wrote in it, "Are you engaged?" Then I
stopped a male student who didn't know either of us and asked him to hand her the note. He went
down the stairs walked directly to her and as he handed her the note he said, "Can you believe some
guy asked me to give this to you?"

Joy read the note and was surprised. She quickly looked around. At least I could tell she knew it was
from me but there was no proof of her answer. She wrote a note and handed it to the young man. He
came to my location and the note read, "What about the 2nd week of February?"

My heart sank. I thought she was referring to my statement that we would wait until then to discuss the
possibility of marriage. I was sad but I still had some hope. She looked happy, not like a girl who was
planning to say no. So in the confusion between her note and her emotional state there was room for
hope.

After another 12 minutes, about her time to leave, I walked up to her and said, "Well what's your
answer to the note?"

She said, "I knew you wrote it but I couldn't find you."

I said, "Well?" By this time I was feeling a little anxious.

She said,"I can't tell you here in front of people." I understood that. Her relief worker came and she
clocked out and got her things.

We walked to a secluded spot under an outdoor staircase into the fine arts center. We hugged and I
said, "Well what do you mean by your note?"

She said, "How about we get married on February 14th?' I lifted my head back and laughed in relief and
happiness saying, "Ohh! YES!"