My Marriage Proposal

It was Saturday morning, Oct. 1, 2005. My not-yet wife and I decided to go for a run out at St. Johns University, a nearby private men's college--her alma mater is the women's college St. Ben's, under the same leadership. There is a nearly-perfect forest trail that meanders around Lake Sagatagan to get to Stella Maris Chapel, built nearly a century ago; fall was in the air. The trail from St. Johns Abbey (on campus, world famous architecture) to the chapel is about a mile and a half. Whenever I run the trail, I envision the monks, or whoever built it, pushing wheel-barrow loads of brick, cement, roof shingles, and what-not along this root-and-stone pocked trail to get to the building site--it is a lovely, serene place. It is one of my favorite runs to do with her since there is a break half way--a pause at the chapel is mando before turning back to the car--and three miles is all I want to do. On this day, however, I had a special treat planned for the rest at Stella Maris--tied into my shoelace was a solitaire ring. I tied it well 'cause I did not plan on losing it!

So as we run along the trail, my thoughts accelerate the closer we get to the chapel: "What would I say? How should I make this special and memorable? Should I just make it simple...? Nah! She deserves more!" Although I had purchased this ring months before, I am literally freaking out, trying to plan what to do--I had only come up with this idea this morning!

You see, I wanted to make the Proposal a special thing for her (well, us, I suppose). We were both in youth ministry at the time, and I had come up with a variety of ideas: from asking the kids to file out one-by-one each holding a rose and hand them to her with me following as the last with the Proposal, to doing it in a sweet dinner date that I had prepared, to hanging the ring from a kite and taking her out to a ball-field where the ring would slide down the string and hit her in the hand! I wanted to be unique. The fact is, my wife is NOT an extrovert; she would not thrive under the social pressure of my preferred idea. So when this morning she suggested we go for a run, the idea popped into my head to do it at the chapel on Lake Sagatagan...but I had no words to say!

When we got to the chapel, I had come up with some lines that, frankly, I don't remember today. They had something to do with 'a lifetime,' and how 'events work together for good even though we can't understand how become such a beautiful picture' or maybe how 'two lives meet in God's timing'...something along those lines. I am on one knee untying my shoe and I am lovingly speaking these things to her. I look up, and she is not even paying attention!! She is completely distracted by the bark on the tree we are standing next to, picking at the layers: "wow...look at the layers! Aren't they beautiful?" Meanwhile, I am pouring out my heart to this awesome woman!

When I finally get the ring out I look up, reach out, and take her left hand from the tree. I am still on one knee; I look up into her eyes when she then looks down and it hits her! Her right hand smacks her open mouth while she says, "Oh my! This is it!" I have the requisite question on my lips as I slide the ring onto her finger and she begins to weep. I stand up and we tightly embrace.

The jog back, interrupted by several spontaneous hugs along the way, was like running on air. I really do not remember much of it except that we both wept tears of joy at several points. Life from that day forward had a new shine. The most important part of that day for me was when she shared the letter her mother wrote for her--she wrote one for each of the three siblings--before she passed away from cancer in 1991.

The ring that she now wears contains the same diamond her mother wore. It was, and still is, a special day.