Decision Points

down a wager or two on football. His hangout was Johnny’s Barbecue. The locals called it the Sick Pig because of the awful wooden pig on top of the restaurant. One day Laura’s dad introduced me to his friends at the Sick Pig, including Johnny himself. I think I passed muster, because I was offered a screwdriver. I turned it down. It was nine o’clock in the morning.
    The courtship moved fast. One weekend Laura and I took a trip to Anne and Tobin Armstrong ’s ranch in South Texas. Anne was a former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, and she and Tobin had invited Prince Charles to play polo. Another weekend we visited John and Angie Newcombe at his tennis academy in New Braunfels, in the beautiful Texas Hill Country. This time I kept my hands on the beer mug and off the steering wheel. I was falling hard for Laura. I was not much of a cat person, but I knew our relationship was solid when I bonded with her black-and-white shorthair, Dewey, named for the decimal system.
    I’ve never been afraid to make a decision, and in late September I made a big one. One night in Laura’s small Austin rental house, I said, “Let’s get married.” She said yes right away. Ours had been a whirlwind romance, but we were ready to commit.
    Soon after the engagement, Laura and I traveled to Houston, where Jeb and Columba were celebrating the christening of their daughter, Noelle. I introduced Laura to the family. They were as smitten with her as I had been. Laura knew she would be joining a large, competitive family, and that suited her just fine. As an only child, she got a kick out of the boisterous Bush clan.
    Our parents checked their schedules, and we picked the first Saturday available, November 5, 1977. We had a small wedding with family and close friends in Midland. The invitations were handwritten by Laura’s mom. We had no ushers, no bridesmaids, and no groomsmen. It was just me, Laura, and her dad to walk her down the aisle.

    On our wedding day.
    While I couldn’t pinpoint it at the time, I believe there is a reason Laura and I never met all those years before. God brought her into my life at just the right time, when I was ready to settle down and was open to having a partner at my side. Thankfully, I had the good sense to recognize it. It was the best decision of my life.

    Shortly after we got married, Laura and I decided to have children. After a couple of years of trying, it was not happening as easily as we had hoped. We discussed, reflected, prayed, and made the decision to adopt. At first I was uneasy about parenting someone else’s child. But the moreI looked into adoption , the more comfortable I became. We had friends who had adopted and loved their children as a precious blessing. And we were fortunate to know about a wonderful agency called the Edna Gladney Home in Fort Worth.
    Founded by a Methodist missionary in 1887, Gladney had become one of the premier adoption homes in the world. Laura and I were introduced by phone to the longtime director, Ruby Lee Piester . She invited us to tour the hospital, where we met some of the pregnant women who were near term. I was touched by their selfless decision to bring their children into the world and give them to couples like us.
    The application process took several months. First, there was the initial interview, which included a lengthy questionnaire. Fortunately, we passed. In the next stage, Gladney planned to send a representative for a home visit. Laura and I were preparing meticulously. Then, in early 1981, she stunned me with the news that she thought she was pregnant.
    Some weeks later we scheduled a trip to a sonogram expert in Houston, a lovely Indian American woman named Srini Malini . I was nervous as she guided the device over Laura’s body. She looked at the video monitor and said, “Here is the head, and here is the body. It’s a girl!” She moved to get a better angle. Suddenly she shouted, “I see two babies, two beautiful babies! This one is a girl as well. You are going to be the parents of twins.” My eyes filled with tears. It was a double blessing. I started calling the sonogram image our first family photo.
    When we called the Gladney director to deliver the news, we felt strangely guilty, as if we had been leading her on. She told Laura something so sweet: “Honey, this happens sometimes. Gladney can help a couple have a child one way or another.” Ruby Lee was more right than she knew. On the original questionnaire, Laura