Story written by Todd Jarrett
I’m home again. This is how Todd felt when he got reacquainted with his ex-wife, Melanie, in 2010.
“When she moved back home, it was like l came home, too,” says Todd. “We rekindled after being apart for seven years, and I lived at the house. But I never felt truly at home. When she came back, I was home again. She fit in the house like a sock in a drawer.”
Todd wasn’t the only one missing Melanie. Their three children, Tyler, Olivia and Jackson were thrilled to have their loving mother back where she belonged. The band was back together.
Todd met Melanie during a Monday night happy hour at Diego’s in Pacific Beach, California in 1987. He looked up from the dance floor to ask her to join him, and she said, “No, you need to come up and talk to me in person first.”
On the dance floor, Todd could barely move. “She was absolutely stunning,” he said. “Every part of me was stiff.”
When the night ended, he could hardly speak. “I was almost too nervous to ask her for her phone number. I managed to mumble the request. Then I almost blew it again. When I went home, I didn’t want to look desperate, so I put her on the five-day-wait program. I finally called, and she said, ‘What took you so long?’”
Their first date was at the Clairemont Bowling Alley to see hypnotist Dr. Michael Dean. Todd says he was already hopelessly in love. “The electricity in the air didn’t come from the performer, if you know what I mean.”
Eventually, the two lovebirds moved in together, and in 1993, Melanie surprised Todd with a gift – a positive home pregnancy test. “I didn’t think I was ready to have kids,” Todd remembers, “but knowing she was the love of my life, it was time to be responsible.”
Tyler was born in 1994. Melanie was pregnant with Olivia when the couple flew to Las Vegas for a weekend getaway. On the plane, Todd stepped into the aisle, knelt, and loudly asked Melanie to marry him. With the passengers watching, Melanie whispered yes, but only Todd heard. “She said yes!” he shouted, and plane erupted in cheers. They married that night at the Las Vegas Wedding Chapel.
Olivia was born in 1995, followed by Jackson in 1997.
But all marriages go through struggles, and in 2002 Todd and Melanie divorced. For seven long years, the home at the end of Arcilla in Rancho Santa Margarita was just a house. Todd and the children yearned for their mom.
One day in 2010, Todd invited Melanie to lunch at BJ’s in Laguna Niguel. He looked up at her from across the table and asked, “What do you say about getting the band back together?” Melanie said yes.
The home has been filled with love ever since. The kids have grown up and moved out, but Melanie’s heart is with them everywhere they go.
“She loves the kids almost too much, if that’s possible,” Todd explains. “She is on the phone with them for hours at a time. When Jackson comes home with his dirty laundry, she jumps up and starts washing it. I’ll say, ‘What are you doing? He’s 25 years old. And she’ll say, ‘He’s the baby, he’s the baaaby.’ When all the kids are home now for a visit, it’s the best day of her life.”
Then there’s the dogs – Charlie and Lucy. “Everywhere she goes, they follow her around the house,” Todd says. “Those two dogs can’t keep their eyes off of her. That makes three of us.”
In 2021, Todd knew he needed to take one more step to complete the circle. In a villa at Mammoth Ski Resort, with the whole Jarrett family watching, Todd dropped to a knee again and re-proposed. They will marry July 1, 2023, in Cabo San Lucas.
“My beautiful wife is finally getting the wedding she deserves,” Todd says. “She is more stunning now than the night I met her. Sometimes when I look at her, I ask myself, how did I get this lucky?”
