Valentine’s Day
13 years ago today, a handsome young man came 800 miles to visit me bearing a diamond ring and a dozen roses. We went out to dinner at a restaurant where we’d sat on the swing under a catalpa tree in the warm late-summer evening 5 or 6 months earlier. It was there that he planned to pop the question.
The restaurant was closed for the winter. The swing was stored in a shed somewhere. The catalpa tree was bare. Hence we wandered over the muddy February scene till we found a stump for me to sit on while he knelt and proposed.
A year later, we returned to find that even our stump had been ground up. (Some folks have no respect for history.)
It was probably a better preparation for marriage than a “perfect” proposal would have been. We got a miniscule dose of the way reality can collide with expectations. We got a chance to laugh at ourselves. Both of these things would come in handy over the years that followed!
Here’s to celebrating real love — always a more adventurous ride than Hallmark would lead us to believe!
10 Comments
Carrie, Reading to Know
=D Sounds like your adventure got off to a great and fun start. ;D
Happy Proposal Anniversary AND Happy Valentine’s Day to you!
Barbara H.
Love your proposal story! We were engaged on a fallen tree.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
GretchenJoanna
Thank God!
and thank you for sharing the sweet story.
Amy @ Hope Is the Word
Happy engagement anniversary!
InkWorkNow
Very sweet. Hope to have my own similar experience someday. Congratulations, Janet. Have a good one.
Lisa the Correspondent
A love story! On Valentine’s Day! Perfect.
Ruth
:-) I love it!
DebD
Awww…that is such a sweet story. Congratulations.
(for some reason your blog isn’t being updated in my RSS feed- will have to figure out what’s going on).
Janet
Deb, it’s probably because the feed was changed when I switched web hosts. Thanks for mentioning it, and sorry for the confusion!
DebD
ah, well that’s actually helpful. It means there aren’t other blogs loosing their way into my feeder. I’ve updated yours and I’ll keep an eye on it for a week or so.