Brooke and Logan Cox: “I’m Just Thankful”

Well, friends, much has happened since I wrote my last “Worth the Wait” post. Aside from the obvious (a global pandemic), my writing career has gone national, and I’ve been focused on other pursuits. But then this love story happened. It hit so close to home and was so personal that there was truly no way I couldn’t write about it. First of all, it involves my half-sister, Brooke, and her new husband, Logan, who had been married for nine days and had just returned from their honeymoon at the beach when we spoke on the first Monday in May. That alone makes this story incredibly special – Brooke married for the first time at 41, and, as a front row observer to her love life, I can tell you personally that her road to happiness has not been easy. (That must be an inherited trait, as you all well know that I have ridden the same bumpy road to happiness.) But not only did Brooke find love, she found the absolute, no holds barred, right man for her, truly a marriage that only God could have designed. And, in its own way, her refusal to settle for anyone less than God’s best impacted me, too – Brooke got engaged in early February, right around the time I was questioning the relationship I was in at the time. Something felt off. But it was a global pandemic, and where else was I going to meet someone? So I stuck around longer than I should have. (Quite honestly, I’m also not really used to being the dumper; I am much more accustomed to being the dumpee.) But then, after she and Logan got engaged and she began to peel back layer upon layer upon layer of how truly incredible this man was and was to her, I realized that I deserved better than subpar, and I ended the relationship. Within a month, I met a wonderful man, a man I might not have met had I not been inspired not to settle by Brooke. That’s the beauty of telling your story – you never know who it might touch, whose life it might change forever. Sister, I know your love story changed your life for the better; it changed my life for the better, too. May we all take a page from Brooke and Logan’s book and never settle for anything less than a love that sets our hearts on fire. This is their story.

When Logan Cox met Brooke Burchfield in March 2019, there was basically a zero percent chance they would ever end up married.

First of all, Brooke was emotionally unavailable when they met. Logan was 14 years her junior. And she had expressed, in no uncertain terms, that she thought marriage was idiotic, and that she’d never take part in it.

But life is funny, and love is pervasive, and 25 months later, they’d be husband and wife.

***

Brooke and Logan met at work in Middlesboro, Kentucky, she as a full-time occupational therapist and Logan, in March 2019, as a physical therapy intern. Brooke thought he was hilarious, a nice guy. They were both attracted to one another, but were mostly drawn into each other’s orbit as friends – it was a natural rapport, an easy connection.

“I felt like I’d known her a long time, but I didn’t know her at all,” Logan said.

The nature of their work required them to work together extensively to cotreat patients. Together Brooke and Logan would bathe patients, toilet patients, dress them.

“It really says a lot about a person when you have to do that with them – how much of a team player they are, and how compassionate with strangers they are,” Brooke said. “Everyone I cotreat with has a different style. Logan is the most beloved member of our staff by patients, hands down, period. There is not an elderly woman in the tri-state area that doesn’t think Logan is the best thing they’ve ever seen. It made our friendship evolution pretty much on the fast track. You find out who a person is pretty quick, how caring they are. Logan would run to the end of the earth for patients – and for me.”

Logan, for his part, was so comfortable with Brooke that it felt like he’d known her forever. It was an effortless connection, he said; he didn’t have to try with her like he does with other people. It just flowed.

“My attraction simmered below the surface for such a long time,” he said.

***

A couple of months later, Logan’s internship ended, and he went to work somewhere else. Brooke immediately went into high gear looking for a way to get Logan back on the team. When a member of her team left, she texted Logan and told him that there would be a job opening up, and that she wanted him to apply for it.

Even before he knew there was a one percent chance his attraction to Brooke would be anything more than a friendship between two colleagues, Logan took a significant pay cut and came back to work with Brooke again that September.

“Logan is like the total package, and we had a connection,” Brooke said. “We hadn’t known each other two months when he left, but there was something just organic there.”

At the time, Logan said, he didn’t see he and Brooke as a couple as even a remote possibility. He said he knew being with her was, quite simply, never going to happen. Because of this – a truly no pressure situation – the two were able to deepen their connection and bond without airs, not trying to flirt or be cute or impress the other; they were truly able to be their full selves and become great friends because neither thought a romance would ever blossom between the two of them. They let their guards down and allowed a deep, soul-fulfilling connection to form. But Logan knew, even in the early days, that he wanted Brooke to be his wife.

“I just bided my time,” he said.

***

For her part, Brooke thought Logan was a catch, too.

“I said 60 times, Logan is such a catch, the best catch,” she said. “I said it to him. I was able to see the value of Logan as a partner, and I’d seen that for a long time. I’d been coaching him for a couple of years about the dating scene, literally at some points taking his phone and sending messages for him. I was always really protective of him.”

But, in September 2020, something changed – and it all started with a Facebook message.

***

Over the course of that summer, Brooke went through a shakeup in her life. Surrounded by a fantastic group of friends, there was one friend who was always there, with no ulterior motive – Logan.

“One person who consistently, consistently checked on me, every hour, all the time – truly not wanting me to spill the tea but wanting to know I’m okay, and that is Logan,” she said.

Brooke talked to Logan during this time about having to possibly leave her job and look for work elsewhere. And that’s when he messaged her a double entendre that threw the gauntlet down: “You’re not going anywhere, because I’m not going anywhere,” he wrote.

“If Brooke left, I was leaving too,” he said. “75 percent of the reason I went back to ARH was for Brooke. When I sent that message, I didn’t think about anything more than that. It was a natural response.”

But Brooke could read the double entendre.

“We had flirted, but I didn’t think it was a possibility,” she said. “I didn’t think he was attracted to me in the way I was attracted to him.”

Everyone noticed her crush. Her daughter, Ashton did. Her mom did. Heck, even I did. So, after that Facebook message, Logan came over to Brooke’s house on a day they were both off of work. It wasn’t a traditional first date – they had hung out so many times socially that a typical first date would have been really odd for them. But, in that meetup, they confessed their feelings and told one another truthfully what they liked about the other.

“Logan is probably the best person I know,” Brooke said. “He is so selfless, and, of course, I’ve known that a long time. For everybody he knows, he’s their go to guy – if you need something done or need a favor, no matter what, he’s going to do it. He’s very gracious and has a solid work ethic, something I really admire. He is so giving, so generous, and an all-around great person. I can’t say anything bad about Logan, actually.”

When the same question is posed to Logan – what do you love about Brooke? – he takes a beat, pauses, inhales, and says, simply yet profoundly: “Everything.”

***

In the middle of their falling in love last fall, Logan’s father, Jeff, was diagnosed with COVID-19. In late May, Jeff was released from the hospital after over 200 days there -- seven months, all told. He is expected to recover, but those early days last fall were very, very dark. Logan was experiencing the highest of highs – falling in love with the love of his life – and the lowest of lows, possibly losing his father to that awful virus.

“When I’m with Brooke, it’s like she’s a shelter for me in a way,” Logan said. “Her heart is just perfect is the best way I can describe it. No matter how bad it got, I still had Brooke, and bad things aren’t as bad because I have her.”

Logan was falling in love, and fast, but there was one thing holding his heart back from nosediving completely over the edge: Brooke had said before, on multiple occasions, that she never wanted to get married. Logan’s parents, married for over a quarter century, had modeled the way for the type of marriage Logan wanted for himself one day.

“I always had this underlying fear with Brooke, because I had always heard her say ‘I’m never getting married. That shit’s stupid. Who the hell wants to do that?’” Logan said. “Obviously I wanted a huge level of commitment with Brooke, but I never thought there was a possibility of that happening. I never thought we’d have something more. So I held back emotionally for quite a time with her; I was scared to go all in. I didn’t think it was a possibility.”

Logan had been down this road before, where what he didn’t think was possible with Brooke came true. Thankfully, he was about to be wrong yet again.

***

All roads lead back to Facebook Messenger: One night, the two were messaging again, and, in Logan’s words, everything flipped a 180. As they were messaging and Logan was, in his way, saying romantic words that rival even the most amorous poets for their depth, Brooke responded “If you ever propose to me, I’m going to fall apart.”

Logan was confounded. The way he took it was that, despite what he thought, she actually would be open to a proposal someday. He took the messages to a female friend at work. She was no help.

“I had never been so confused in my entire life,” Logan said.

The two were committed by the end of 2020 and considered themselves a couple – even without marriage on the table, Logan said he never saw an end to a relationship with Brooke – but “that message changed everything,” he said. “Then I realized ‘Holy shit, this is different – there might be an end game here.’”

For her part, Brooke said – and I can attest to this, as she has told me many times that she just didn’t think marriage was in the cards for her – that getting married was “not something I ever strived for – ever. Ever.”

But then, she met the right person.

“I had never met somebody who I trusted as implicitly as Logan,” she said. “I trust him with everything. I would trust him with my possessions, with my heart, to make the right decisions. Logan would rather stab himself in the eye than do something to hurt me. I know that 100 percent. It goes back to knowing him so well before we got together. And it’s not exclusive to me – it’s probably amped up with me, but he would stab himself in the eye before he hurt anyone and cut his arm off before hurting me. I truly trust him 1,000 percent.”

The wheels started turning in Logan’s mind. He knew he loved Brooke, and for two weeks said he wanted to tell her "more than 5,000 times." Finally, in the car one night, he said those three words. He had an irrational fear she wouldn’t say it back to him. Of course, she did.

“He was squirming out of his damn driver’s side seat,” Brooke laughed.

Only weeks later, they’d be back in that same car, and Logan would have a ring in his hand and a question to ask.

***

“I’ll never forget the day it was solidified to me that I knew she was the one I was supposed to marry,” Logan said.

There wasn’t a single doubt in his mind, he said, but it all felt fast. He was speaking to a friend about it, who proposed to his now wife after only a month.

“When you know, you know,” Logan's friend said.

Logan remembers that “when he said that, all bets were off at that point. I knew.”

Logan bought a ring and planned to propose to Brooke on Valentine’s Day on top of a mountain, where they had gone on a date once. But it was burning a hole in his pocket, he said – he couldn’t even wait 24 hours to ask her.

“I said screw it,” he said. “Everything I’ve done since I’ve met Brooke, I’ve taken everyone else into consideration. But for this, I’m doing what the hell I want to do. I’m proposing to her tonight. If she says no, so be it.”

At lunchtime on February 3, Logan put the ring in the pouch behind the passenger seat of his car. That evening, when they were in the car together, he leaned in to kiss her, and, while doing so, slipped his hand behind the passenger seat, grabbed the ring, and pulled it out.

She, of course, said yes.

***

Logan said neither of them saw the point in a long engagement, and, with that line of thinking, they planned a low-key wedding for April 24. That morning, Logan woke up early and got his hair cut – no nerves, he said, because “if I didn’t want to marry her, I’d never have asked her in the first place.” Knowing his bride-to-be would be anxious – what can I say? It’s a Burchfield family trait – he messaged her encouraging words throughout the day to be, in his words, “the calm throughout the storm.” After his haircut, he went home, got dressed, and arrived at the church “painfully early,” Brooke said – he was so early that he sat in his car in the parking lot until the pastor noticed him and asked him to come inside to his office and hang out for a while.

When the wedding began at 1:30 that afternoon, Brooke walked down the aisle to the instrumental version of “Yellow” by Coldplay.

“When she came through the back doors – that was the most magical moment of my life,” Logan said. “It was ridiculous. I wanted to cry the whole time, but I thought ‘I can’t be in shambles; I have to speak during the ceremony.’ I did start crying when I saw her. I held her hand the whole time. I didn’t know if I was supposed to, but I wanted to. After we got married, we didn’t know what we were supposed to do, so we went in the back and I wanted to kiss her so bad, so as soon as no one could see us, I grabbed her.”

Brooke doesn’t remember anyone else being there on their wedding day but Logan.

“I had tunnel vision on Logan, and that was it,” she said.

Brooke and my father, Larry, was the middleman of gifts, bringing Logan’s gifts from Brooke to him and Brooke’s gifts from Logan to her. Because Logan apparently knows my sister, he got her a “Thug Wife” (instead of “Thug Life”) candle, a necklace, and a picture frame in which they’d put photos of their wedding day. He also got her a card but “I didn’t have enough room on the card to write everything I wanted,” he said.

Brooke got Logan a coffee cup with a picture of an Xbox controller that said “Leveled up to husband.” Logan also got a handkerchief with a message on it saying “Meet me at the end of aisle” and a fishing lure that said “You’re the greatest catch of my life” – Brooke always did say, long before she ever knew she’d catch him, that he was a catch, after all. A beautiful, full circle moment that only God could have planned out.

***

Brooke didn’t marry until she was 41 years old. She had all but given up on it. Marriage was for other people – not her. There were a lot of tears and a lot of prayers in those low moments, she said, not even necessarily for a partner, but just for strength. In those heart wrenching low moments, when she figured she’d probably never commit to anyone, Brooke committed to herself, working on self-love, her health, and thinking about what characteristics she wanted to embody and, maybe someday, wanted her partner to embody. On April 24, 2020, had I told Brooke and Logan that a year later they’d be married, both of them said, nearly in unison, that they would have asked me “What the hell is going on?” (Logan also said he’d say “Thank God.”) Neither thought that marriage to one another – or even marriage, period – was a possibility. But, by the grace of a good and loving God, it was.

Brooke wants every reader to hear this loud and clear: Don’t ever, ever settle. Wait for this. Wait for this. Get out of your own way. Trust in God’s plan for your life. And if you have that nagging suspicion, as I did earlier this year, that a person is not right for you? Trust it.

“I would have waited until I was 60, or 80,” Brooke said. “You and I have discussed before, it’s a testament to value yourself. Don’t settle for just whatever you can get or whoever comes along, for company or whatever. It is absolutely worth it to wait for exactly God’s plan for you. I would wait twice as long for Logan.”

Her husband agrees.

“I would have waited until I was 99 if I only lived to 100 and only had one year with her,” he said. After a beat, he said, summing it all up so well, “I’m just thankful.”