Months earlier he had taken my parents to dinner and asked for their blessing to marry me. I knew about this dinner date but had no idea whether they had gotten back to him or what they even said. Peter's lips were sealed, and of course my parents' were too. As far as I knew, it was graduation day and Peter still hadn't heard back from my dad. What was taking so long? I remember Peter telling me, "Just be patient. He will call me when he has time." How in the universe could he be so calm? "Has time"?! Wasn't it killing him too?
Yes, I'm thick, but back to Memorial Day.
At my party he made it clear to me several times he had to work the next day. It was a holiday, but I wasn't going to complain about it, though I did tell him it was weird. That night, after most of the guests had left, he and I went inside to read cards and open presents. When every envelope and box had been opened I remember sitting back and saying, "You know what would make this entire day perfect? If you proposed right now." Then he smiled and gave me another one of those, "just trust and be patient, it will happen exactly when it's supposed to" talks.
Fast forward a few hours, I said goodbye to the few lingering friends and Peter tucked me in and prayed for me (something we still do nightly to this day). I was out like a light.
I woke up to an obnoxious combination of scratching and tapping. At first I thought it was my brothers on the deck below my bedroom window, so I ignored it. Then it continued -- tap. . .tap. . .tap. You know how infuriating is it to be woken up, especially not by the gentle sound of birds chirping or someone combing their fingers through your hair.
I was groggy-eyed, but frustrated enough to sit up in bed and pull up a section of the blinds. There was Peter, standing on the porch below my window with the cutest grin filling his face.
He proceeded to climb a ladder he and my dad had carefully set up on the porch below, after they took out my window's screen and hid it under my bed, sometime while I was entertaining guests. I quickly pushed open the window and tried to pull him into my room but he resisted me. "No, no, stop. There's something important I have to ask you." My mind honestly hadn't even gone to oh my, he's about to propose yet. I was still quite a few steps behind mentally.
How did you get off work? Why are you here so early? Is everyone okay? (because he might throw pebbles at my window and climb a ladder to tell me something terrible happened. . .). Then I finally thought, maybe he is going to propose. . . but he would never do that without my dad's blessing! Has he heard from my dad? What is going on?
"There is something I need to ask you. Something I've been wanting to ask you for a really long time. Since the first time I saw you, really. Angela, I love you. Will you marry me?" Then he pulled out this beautiful, giant, multi-diamond, family-heirloom ring.
Of course I said "yes", hugged him tight, and then he came through the window.
We sat on my bed and he told me all about how he had been thinking of how to ask me for such a long time, then got the idea when I told him repeatedly how I wanted him to throw rocks at my window like Rolf and Liesel. (I had no idea it would be incorporated into a proposal, or that it would even happen!). He told me how he'd talked to my dad and heard back from him quite some time ago, but there were two stipulations that he had:
1) he had to wait to propose until after my graduation party (the following day? check)
2) I had to be 18 before we could get married (my birthday is 12/27, we got married on 12/31. check)
Then he told me all about the ring-- his mother gave it to him, her mother before her, and her's before her and her's before her. . . It's a family heirloom that somehow I incredibly ended up with. He knew I wanted something big, but not bling-y, and I really got just that. It's 9 diamonds in an antique setting with yellow gold surrounding the center diamond and a white gold band. I am very much into having things that very few people have, and I honestly haven't seen anyone with this ring or anything even slightly similar. And yes, I still look at my left hand and smile, I still twist it around and play with it as if I had gotten engaged yesterday.
And so, that's a long story shortened. I'm not much for anniversaries, I don't generally grill steaks with asparagus for a 6 month anniversary, or Italian for the anniversary of our two-weeks-after-the-first-time-we-saw-each-other-4-years-ago. You get the idea. But to me, getting engaged two years ago is a bigger thing. Like being married for two years, or twenty-two.
So here's to that man, for totally surprising me beyond my wildest dreams, keeping me on my toes and crazily happy, and loving and cherishing me forever and always.
-A.H.
-A.H.
