On Engagements and Marriage

 

It was lovely.

Almost a decade before the first smart phone and social media. Zero expectation of having the perfect pictures, videos, or staged event. Knowing that the only thing that really mattered was the two of us.

We met almost a year earlier as students and quickly knew we wanted to spend our lives together. I said, “It's like she alone has a key to my heart.”

That Saturday morning, I treated myself to breakfast at Cracker Barrell, a rare treat for a graduate student. At the gift shop, I purchased a ceramic jar with the words “Memories” on the side. Later, I found two dozen roses in her favorite colors – pink and yellow - at a grocery store.

We had shopped together for a diamond so she could show me what she liked. Later I purchased one we thought beautiful at the Service Merchandise in Louisville. We didn’t care it didn’t come from a fancy jewelry store. We liked it, and its shape was unique and beautiful – like our relationship.

Enlisting the help of a friend, I anticipated a lovely evening. She expected me to pick her up for a date. Don showed up at her door about 5pm, instructing she needed to come with him. He chauffeured her to the seminary chapel and brought her inside to me.

She and I climbed the attic stair door, heading toward the actual steeple. At one landing lay the Memories jar, wrapped in a gift box. I told her she would need that later. Climbing higher – which I’m sure was against school policy – we came to the inside of the steeple.

Earlier that afternoon, I prepared that special place. Popping her head into that area as she ascended the ladder, she saw several candles burning, two dozen roses, and a ring box. After we sat down on the hard wood floor, I got on my knees, declared my love and asked her to marry me. We prayed, thanking God, and held each other.

Relishing the moment, we enjoyed a magnificent view of the Louisville skyline. And we later agreed we wished we'd stayed in that steeple longer, lingering in the beauty of just the two of us.

We loved each other and expected that love to grow, mature, and ripen. We anticipated spending life together as best friends, partners, lovers, parents, and helpers.

I told her to keep the rose petals in the Memories jar when they dried. 

No pressure to create the perfect event, picture, or video. Just the satisfaction of loving and being loved by the “love of my youth” (Prov. 5:18-19). I snapped a photo on my camera – one I’ve rarely shared in twenty-six years.

Then, we descended the ladders into the real world. It would be the world of ups and downs, appointments and disappointments, triumphs and tears, laughter and heartache, helps and hurts. But we descended into it all – together - one step at a time.

Dining at the Tumbleweed Mexican restaurant, the same one as our first date, we remembered that night. A bitterly cold winter Saturday, we were strangely warmed by the first blossoms of our budding relationship. Seated at a small table for two that first date, we both awakened to the reality we might spend our lives with this stranger that felt like an old friend.

Returning to her apartment the night of the engagement, we made four phone calls to tell the good news to our parents and grandmothers. And we reveled in the beauty of her diamond – and looked forward to beauty yet to come.

She’s still my favorite, more than a quarter of a century later. And we’d do it all over again.

It was lovely.