The Proposal

He proposed to me in the parking lot of the Bonanza restaurant in Grand Forks, ND, on New Year's Eve in 1988. It wasn't a surprise - we'd picked out the ring together months before and he'd been making payments on it. When we went to Munn's Jewelry in Crookston, Minnesota and looked at all the diamonds through the glass, he spotted a gorgeous setting that he really liked, a large, round center diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds and rubies. It was terribly expensive though, and honestly not my style. It was more than I wanted or needed. Instead, I desired something simple, a round solitaire diamond with a simple gold band, and another plain gold band for the wedding ring. "Okay" he said, "But only if you are sure. You'll be wearing it the rest of your life." Sigh. Oh how I loved those words, "the rest of your life". I wanted to spend my life with this man, to grow old with him.

As we were sitting in my car the night of The Proposal, he asked me to turn and look at the huge pile of snow in the parking lot. "When I was a kid, my Dad would bring all of us boys here to eat, and while he would sit and have coffee after the meal, we'd always play on the snow pile." I turned to look at the snow, it was a huge pile made by the snow plow that cleared the parking lots around the restaurant and ajoining mall. There was a lot of snow that year - so much snow that later on that winter we got into an accident because the piles at the intersection were too high to see around. Anyway, when I turned back around from looking at the snow and imagining five little boys playing there, he had the ring in his hand. "Will you marry me?" he asked? I got really teary-eyed, blubbered out my "YES!" and he tried to put the ring on my right hand. I pulled it away. He tried again. I discretely tried to give him my left hand. He tried the right hand again and with concern said, "Don't you want the ring?" And I started to laugh. A nervous, goofy laugh, as the tears rolled down my cheeks. "Yes, I want the ring very much, but that's the wrong hand!!" And so we laughed together. Thus began our journey towards married life that had started a little more than two years earlier, when we'd met on September 4th, 1986, at the University of North Dakota. This summer we will celebrate our 20th Anniversary.

To Be Continued...