Marry Me...

http://youtu.be/uIXBJM6lDQ0 [Marry Me/Amanda Marshall]
http://youtu.be/4lazdg-eqmQ [Knights in White Satin/The Moody Blues]

"The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries. On the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But, once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people, infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and, yet, before an immense sky."
                                            ~Rainier Maria Rilke

Do you remember what you were doing 17 years ago? I do, like it was yesterday. I’ve got one of those minds, you see, that remembers stuff like that. Even if I didn’t have a mind that remembers almost everything, I would always remember this particular date. It was the day that my husband asked me to marry him.
I was living in Maryland, and Tom was in Tallahassee. We had re-connected the previous February, after a few years of being apart. I always knew that I would marry him. I told my Aunt Judy after our first date that I’d found the man I was going to marry and, if I didn’t marry him, I wasn’t meant to get married. I don’t think it was that knee-jerk for Tom, but I knew. Sometimes, guys need a little more time to realize what it is they want exactly for their lives, and, if you’re a smart woman, you’ll give them the time they need to figure it out. I gave him his space. I left Florida and moved to Maryland. Yeah, it was scary. It was a risk. I threw the dice and took a gamble. A BIG one, and it didn’t pay off immediately. Yet, I knew it was the right thing to do–the right move to make. Sometimes in life, you’ve got to do those kind of things - take those kind of chances to get what you want. It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen overnight, but if you believe in something, REALLY believe in it, and it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. I believed in us.
We decided that October, over the Columbus Day holiday, that I would take a mini-vacation and go visit him in Florida. We hadn’t seen each other in a long time, though we’d stayed in touch. We began, as previously mentioned, in early 1994 to re-connect and have a long-distance relationship. It was time for a visit. For those of you who don’t know what a mini-vacation is, it’s shorter than a full week but longer than a 4-day weekend. I was in Florida for five days - five jam-packed, glorious days. It was whirlwind and wonderful, and I truly felt like a princess. Every girl should have that feeling once in their life. I savored it, because I’d waited a long time for it.
I arrived on Wednesday night. Tom wanted to pick me up at the airport, but I wanted to get to the hotel and freshen up before I saw him. Remember, it had been awhile. I still remember hearing his knock on the door. I still recall the butterflies, as I anxiously moved toward it and heard him call my name. I remember cracking the door and peeking out from behind it. The first thing I saw was his smile. The second thing I noticed was that he looked just the same. He was just as I remembered him, except he was a little older and wiser. I was too. I let him in, and everything else kinda faded to black.
We talked. All night long, we talked and laughed and held each other. I felt bad because he had to work on Thursday [and Friday], but he managed to catch a few winks, and he didn’t seem to mind. He got about four hours sleep. That, a hot shower, a few cups of coffee, and he was good to go. That’s what he said anyway. Adrenalin can do that to you, give you that extra boost that keeps you going when you’d, otherwise, normally crash. We were both on an adrenalin high.
I felt guilty for going back to sleep, but he told me not to, as he gave me a kiss goodbye and told me he’d pick me up for lunch. So, I went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I had room service send me up a cup of coffee and a bagel. I pampered myself with a long tub soak. It was wonderful. After lunch with him, I walked around Tallahassee and sat outside reading, which might not sound like a good time to a lot of people, but, for me, was like a Super Bowl afternoon. The first night of my mini-vacation, Tom took me to see The Moody Blues in concert. If you EVER get the chance to see them, do it. They are fantastic. We sat, snuggled in the blackness of the amphitheater as this highly underrated band played with a full orchestra underneath the backdrop of a black ceiling that looked as if a million stars had come out to serenade us, along with them. It was magical. It was wondrous. Life felt limitless in its possibilities. There’s something about young love that does that – makes you feel vaster than you actually are and more invincible than you ever will be. It’s similar to the feeling you have when you graduate from high school. Only when you’re in love, there’s someone else along for the ride, and the powerful feelings are doubly strong and twice as wondrous...magically wondrous. That’s how it was that night as we sat beneath a beautifully orchestrated sky and listened to equally, and exquisitely orchestrated music. It was good. It was one of those moments, when you’re living it, that you know it’s good, and you truly savor it. That’s how all the moments were that weekend: exquisitely good.
The following night was just as spectacular. We went to dinner at Andrew’s Restaurant. Tom has connections in high places there, and we were given the royal treatment that night. I can’t imagine how being truly royal could have rivaled my experience that evening. It didn’t matter. It was my night to know what it felt like to be a princess. We were sat at a table off, unto itself. Quiet. Romantic. Tom had a dish prepared table-side for us called Chicken Baltimore. It was delicious, and I’ve never tasted it since. Trust me, I’ve looked for the recipe. Then, I decided several years ago to stop looking for it, because some memories are more special if you can’t duplicate them in any way except for the memory of it. That Friday night was definitely one of those such days. We had a lovely dinner - the food was great; the company was good. It was setting a stage. My husband is a master at doing that.
After dinner, stuffed and lazily happy [as often happens after a great meal], we went back to my hotel room.
We slipped into something more comfortable. Yeah. It’s a line, but it was true. And, just so you know, though you don’t really need to know, we aren’t the black smoking jacket with silk pajama bottoms and slinky negligee types! No. We’re more the sweat pants and over-sized t-shirt types. There’s something to be said for that: relaxed, comfortable ease. That’s how we’ve always been with the other. We impress each other in different ways that don’t require black smoking jackets with silk pajama bottoms or slinky negligees. We don’t need gimmicks.
Earlier in the day, we stopped at a video store [anyone remember when they use to be commonplace?] and we rented a VCR [I’ve referenced this technical dinosaur previously, but it really wasn’t that long ago....] Tom indulged me. He let me pick out the movies, and I chose Same Time Next Year and On Golden Pond. He’d also picked up a container of chocolate milk [we don’t drink alcohol.] and a bag of Pepperidge Farm Sausalito cookies, for a little midnight snack. He would have made a good girl scout: he came well prepared that evening. We made it through the first movie, and I was pleasantly surprised that he liked it. [Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn were in it. How bad could it be, right?] We had our intermission of cookies and milk. I sat in the center of the bed, propped up with extra pillows, enjoying my sweet treat.
Tom went to the dresser drawer. I watched as he rummaged around for something. "Hold on," he said. "I’ve got something for you."
My brows came together. He handed me something heavy and rectangular. It was wrapped in paper, with all of it tied in the center and fluffed out the way flower shops wrap fruit baskets, with see-through wrap – all poofy and wispy. It was very sweet–endearing that he took the time to have it wrapped like that. It was the kind of thing that makes a woman’s heart go pitter-pat, because of the genuine effort put into the gesture. The ribbon was tied in a beautiful bow, and when he handed it to me, I couldn’t imagine what was inside the thoughtful wrapping?
Both of my brows furrowed harder, as I tried to figure out what it was. I giggled. "My God!" I exclaimed. "It feels like a brick!"
His face didn’t give anything away. "Would you just open it!" he said more eager than impatient. If his heart sunk a little when I said what I did, he didn’t let on.
I untied the ribbon and pulled the paper away, and to my surprise, it was a brick. Truly. Actually. REALLY, it was brick! But, it wasn’t just any brick. It was a perfectly selected, unflawed brick and in gold paint, he had intertwined our names and written beneath them, "Let’s start building..." He’d already picked the day: April 28, 1995. [April 28, 1989 was when we had our first date] Did I mention that my husband is a romantic? Yeah. I’m blessed. I know it...
Anyway, I remember sitting there in the middle of the bed with the hum of the room’s heater in the background, on an early autumn evening, staring down at this brick with it’s golden message, as tears came and the room spun a bit. When I looked up at him, he had his hand opened to me, and sitting in his palm was an opened box with a glittering diamond, its light sparkled up at me, brighter than any star I’d ever seen. I glanced over at him. He was on bended knee - it looked as if he were about to say his prayers, except that he was leaning across the mattress toward me, bearing gifts – life-changing gifts.
I think most women would have reached for the ring first. Some of my friends have said they would have been so excited that they’d have wanted to investigate it thoroughly and wanted it immediately put on their finger. I guess I’m not like most women or most of my friends, because I reached for him first. I remember feeling his arms wrap around me. His is a strong embrace. I felt safe inside his space. It’s something I notice in men – how strong their hugs are, and how safe I feel inside them....With Tom, I felt good about both!
He moved his face closer to me so that his eyes were looking into mine. "Will you, Sweetie?" he asked. "Will you marry me?"
This was never a question that required any deep thought on my part. I’d known from our first date that if I didn’t marry him, there wasn’t a guy out there for me, because I knew, after that first, true "hanging out" together, that he was the one. I remember laughing and crying, that funny mix of happy tears, and telling him what I’d waited a long time to tell him: "Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you!"
I remember his smile, when I gave him that response. It was a lottery-winning kind of smile. Mine was reflected back into his. I don’t think he doubted for a second what my answer would be, but there’s always a moment, when you ask an important question like that, when your heart is beating so loudly that you aren’t certain if you heard the answer you were hoping to hear. You have to pause to think back on it. He didn’t need to pause or think back. Tom had heard my answer loud and clear. His smile evidence as much, and it made me laugh, because he looked as if, in the answering of my yes, he’d caught a lucky break and gotten a really good deal on something. It’s the same message contained in my smile back to him. It’s something I wish that every man and every woman could feel once in their life: that truly, giddy feeling of "Oh my God! MY GOD! I’ve hit the MOTHERLODE!!!"
He slid the ring on my finger and kissed it for good measure. Then, I kissed him. The second movie was forgotten as we turned off the light and snuggled in the bed, talking about plans and future and dreams.
Later that night, too excited to sleep, I remember lying in the bed and being aware of every sound and every feeling: Tom’s body next to mine; hearing his breathing and the slow, steady timbre of his light snoring, and I thought to myself: Yeah. I can do this for the next 50 years! I think I dozed for a couple of hours that night, wrapped up in him and vice versa. But, there were "farming instincts" in my blood, and I was up at the crack of dawn, because there were phone calls to be made. I think my mother and Aunt Judy both suspected what was going to happen that weekend, and I called them both respectively to squeal into the phone and share my unbridled joy! I called my two best friends as well. It was news too exciting and extraordinary not to share.
Later in the morning, we went to IHOP for breakfast. We had a BIG breakfast - Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity! That’s what we both had. I don’t know about you, but happy, life-changing events can work up a mighty appetite, and we were both hungry. We had a leisurely brunch. That’s what it was for us, then he took me shopping to an unusual little place called The Mole Hole [I don’t think they’re in business any longer, which is sad.] The contents inside the store were as unique as its name. We wandered through it, taking our time before our afternoon movie. Tom knew I liked unusual stores, and things like that. As if my brick and ring weren’t enough gift that weekend, he bought me a lovely glass bird that was the shade of cornflowers. He probably wouldn’t have insisted on getting it for me, but when I saw it, the first thing that came to my mind was the bluebird of happiness. I laughed when I held it up, because it was odd that my eyes would wander straight to that item. Tom thought it was the right sentimental touch to top off the perfect weekend. [The sentiment was a good omen too. ] After our shopping excursion, he took me to see The River Wild. It was a great thriller with Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon. [Can you tell that we love movies?] I snuggled close to him after we ate hot, buttered popcorn. It was the kind of movie where a girl wants to feel the arm of her guy around her, because the movie was suspenseful, and the arm was secure. It was a hint of many "to be" moments, when I’d watch a movie beneath the security of his arm.
The following day, we gathered at the house that Tom shared with his brother, Jim, and he introduced me as his fiancé to a group of friends who’d come over to spend the afternoon watching football. Tom made his mother’s meatball grinders, and we eased into the first, real feelings of being an engaged couple, sharing our time and happy moments with family and friends. [There would be more of that to follow several weeks later when Tom flew to Maryland to formally ask my father for my hand. Yeah, it’s old school, but it was an important gesture to a southern father.] That night, I stayed at Tom and Jim’s house because I had an early flight out the following morning.
It was hard to leave. It was one of those moments when, paraphrasing from When Harry Met Sally, you felt like "when your life is about to truly begin, you want it to begin right then and there, in that moment." I can still feel the strength of his hug, as we waited at the boarding gate.
"I’ll be there before you have time to miss me," he said.
"I already miss you!" I cried.
"It’ll be okay!" he assured. "We just have to get through the next few months, then I’ll be there for good. No more apart..."
He was moving to Maryland for me. I had a good job as a Technical Writer, and jobs for writer’s don’t come down the pike everyday. He was a manager at a retail establishment. He felt he’d have a better shot at a job coming to him in Maryland, than the other way around. [He landed a job four weeks later as a department manager for a new store that was being built and scheduled to open in early March of ‘95.] Tom moved up to Maryland the first week of February There was definitely a higher power at work in our lives. Everything unfolded in perfect timing as to how we needed it to play out. My little, glass bluebird of happiness would prove to be a good talisman. At the time, I only knew how much I loved it. I didn’t know it would truly come to represent the happiness we were feeling or that was yet to come. It was safely tucked away inside my purse as I waited to board.
I sucked it up. There was a lot of planning that needed to be done. The time would pass lickety split. My heart knew that. I wasn’t thrilled that we wouldn’t be together for the holidays, but Tom promised that we’d talk several times a day to get through it, then we’d never be apart again.
When I got on the plane, I looked over to the waiting area I’d just left and saw him standing at the floor-to-ceiling window - waiting for the plane to take off, watching for signs of me to appear from behind a window so that he could wave. I felt tears come to my eyes. I remembered another time and another man who loved me - who waited until I’d gotten off safely and was out of his sight before he turned to continue on with his business for the remainder of his day. I closed my eyes, sighing for a moment and feeling truly blessed. Blessings. When they come to you, they’re grand, and God’s blessings for me that first week in October of 1994 have been among my grandest. I had been wooed and romanced, chocolate-milked and dined, loved and engaged. If I had to imagine what dancing on a cloud felt like, it would be those 5 days in Tallahassee, when I went from being a single lady and returned home, about to enter into the club of soon-to-be-married women.
Waiting for the plane to take off and staring at him out the window, I saw my life come full circle. I remembered how devastated I’d been when Tom and I had broken up, because I knew he needed time and space to figure out what exactly it was he wanted for his life. I knew it was me. It’s the only time in my life – or thing in my life that I’ve ever been 100% certain of. Still, I had to let him come to that realization on his own. He was my true North, and I knew, when I let him go, that if he ever came back to me, it would be because he’d figured out that I was his too...
I remember my parents waiting for me at the other end of the plane's destination.
My mother hugged me the way, I imagine, all mothers do when their daughter gets engaged. There was excitement in her hug, and I could tell her mind had already been making as many plans as mine had on that plane ride home. She took hold of my left hand and looked at my ring.
She lifted it up to my father as her excitement rose. "Earl, look!" she beamed.
My father looked down, then he looked up at me. It wasn’t anything he said as much as that look. He held me in different light. I could see it clearly. I had gotten on that plane as his daughter-his youngest child, and I had returned as someone else’s intended. I would always be his daughter, but everything had changed in the span of five days. I felt it in his hug – his strong hug.
I woke up this morning to find a dozen yellow roses with red tips around the petals waiting on the kitchen island to greet me. There was also an "everything" bagel beside it. Seventeen years later, and my Tom has still got the moves.
I smiled. I smiled BIG, and my first prayer of the day was, "Thank you, God, for giving me this wonderful man!"
The roses are beautiful, and they’re in our special color: yellow. Yellow for us signifies want, clarity, warmth, happiness, brilliance, authenticity, golden grace and love that’s so bright and beautiful, it could give the sun lessons in how to shine. That’s our yellow. I looked at each one of those roses in its perfect splendor and beauty and remembered back to when we were first dating, and he left me one, perfect red rose.
"Ooh, that means he loves you!" a friend had told me. "One red rose means true  love."
This morning, I looked at all my pretty roses and thought, He loves me a LOT! And, I love him. Still– Madly. Deeply. Always...
We’ve shared a lot in the last 17 years together - lived through a great deal of change; seen most of our dreams realized; had a couple of them not and accepted the fact that that particular dream would never be for us–it wasn’t in our cards; but, I can’t complain. In the blessings department, I hit the motherlode on October 7, 1994.
That little bluebird of happiness glass figurine pegged it right so many years ago. Happy. That’s what we are. It doesn’t mean we don’t have our share of problems, or that there aren’t moments when he drives me crazy and vice versa. Ups. Downs. Good things - bad. Those are normal parts of the scenery of a life lived. But, by the grace of God, and his loving smile on me with the gift of this man and this marriage, I’ve not had to face those things alone. I am immeasurably blessed and equally happy. After all, happiness is a state of overall being, and that, in a nutshell, defines the marriage of the Bosher-Perrans.
I think the greatest testament to the love Tom and I share is that if I had to do it all over again, knowing ALL the things I know now, I’d say "yes" again, without a second thought – "in a New York minute" as my father used to say.  And, Tom has told me that if he had to do it all over again, knowing ALL the things that he knows, he'd still ask me without a second thought, in that same, New York minute.
We’re 17 years into that 50 we talked about spending together so many years ago. I saw a cartoon once, and I’ve amended it to fit our personalities.  It says: I imagine us skidding across the finish line together with a glass of chocolate milk in one hand and a hand of Nutter Butters in the other, laughing and squealing in delight, "Wa*Hoo McDaniel! What a ride!"
It has been! I’ll tell you that. So far, it’s been a wild and crazy ride. I’m looking forward to the rest of it.
And, the truest thing I can say about him now, just as I said about him 22 years ago, when we first met: he’s my knight in shining armor...still...still...still...
I hope he never forgets it...
　
http://youtu.be/si_1mpmVECA [The Last Time I Felt Like This from Same Time Next Year]http://youtu.be/0b_KZmm5eIo [Theme from On Golden Pond]