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This story is being written in retrospect almost seven years later. I regret not writing it sooner in my life, but hey, better now than another seven years from now!
June 13th was the day of my engagement. I figure you can be in on the secret a bit early, since I had my suspicions that day too! Now we can both sit down and enjoy the telling of it since we already know the ending (Benjamin and I are still married).
June in San Antonio is hot and sticky, but not enough to deter Benjamin and I from taking a special day together in Fredericksburg, Texas. Fredericksburg is a quaint historic German town in the Texas hill country, whose Main Street is lined with antique shops, candle-making shops, ice cream parlors, clothing boutiques, and tiny general stores selling various trinkets and sundries.
We spent the morning strolling between shops and enjoying the unusual experiences each had to offer. Getting hungry around noon, we searched for quiet shady spot to eat our picnic lunch. Shady wasn’t to be had that day, but secluded and quiet we found in a little walled Chinese garden. We parked ourselves on a concrete bench and munched away at our sandwiches. In a few minutes, I noticed Benjamin making toys out of his surroundings again. He had plucked several strands of narrow grass from some kind of plant next to our bench, and was weaving and braiding them into a thicker strand. I was curious, but didn’t ask questions.
After lunch, Benjamin needed to find a men’s room, so we went searching – most of the shops wouldn’t not offer a restroom, or if they did, only after a purchase. We finally found a place that was free, and I waited outside in the sun for Benjamin. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Over fifteen minutes, and in addition to sunburned, I was getting annoyed. He finally emerged with nary an excuse, only an embarrassed shrug of the shoulders. I shut my mouth and didn’t ask questions.
Earlier in the day I had seen a sign for “Lady Bird Johnson State Park and Wildflower Reserve” or something to that effect, and I mentioned it now. Most of the state parks in Texas have large trees and a body of water running through them, and it might be find a cooler place to spend a few hours of the afternoon. “Plus,” I thought, “It’ll be a nice secluded place, outdoors, in case my suspicions are right….”
Finding our car, we followed the signs to Lady Bird Johnson park. Finding the park proved to be much easier than finding a place to cool down in it. There was no water here, and hardly any shade. We strolled through several walking trails, languishing in the unrelenting sun, sweat sticky on our skin, hunting for a place to sit and rest. Finally I spotted it, a tree at least large enough to provide a couple feet of shade. Nope. This was not the place for Benjamin. Keep looking. The next place I found was definitely shady. Several trees had low branches grown together over a tiny clearing about six feet across. The branches were low enough you could sit under them but not stand, and they were so thick it was a bit dark. Benjamin wasn’t satisfied here either.
I was frustrated by now, tired of walking, tired of the heat, and tired of imperfect places that Benjamin wasn’t’ satisfied with. “He is never this picky!” I thought.
“Fine, you pick the place. But I really need to sit soon; we’ve been walking all day!” I said.
Finally at the top of a small hill, there was a spattering of tall trees providing scattered shade through their thin leaves. The hill was bright, the grass was green and soft, and oh, did I forget to mention, we were within visibility of our car. We had come almost full circle back to where we started. But this place, Benjamin was happy with, and that is what mattered.
We sat under the tree, and I put my head in Benjamin’s lap while he stroked my hair. Fifteen degrees cooler, and the day would have been perfect, but that was not to be had in the middle of June! I tried to start a conversation, tried to discuss the weather, tried to instigate a kiss, but to no avail. Benjamin was withdrawn, stiff, and hardly responding. I was hoping this was just extreme nervousness. For the first time that day, I was unsure of myself. Unsure if my suspicions were correct, unsure what was really happening here. I knew what my answer would be if he asked, but was he going to get up the guts to finally ask?
“How about if we dance?” I suggested, because boredom was setting in and the anxiety we were both experiencing didn’t lend itself well toward lounging in the grass. Neither of us are great dancers, so we sidestepped around each other a bit, and I leaned my head against his broad chest. “Is this the moment I’ve been waiting for all my life? Is this the time, the place, the perfect setting I’ve always dreamed of? Are these the kind of trees, is this the romantic moment and is it working?” Besides the heat, it certainly was.
Deep in my thoughts, it occurred to me that we weren’t dancing anymore, and I was looking into Benjamin’s upturned eyes, staring at me quietly from his kneeling position on the soft grass. At least his eyes were beautiful, almost green on a bright day like this, almost blue reflecting the gray blue shirt he wore. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Clearing his throat, he began telling me how he had fallen in love with me, how much I meant to him, and that he couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life without me. Then, in classic form, he asked, “Joy, would you think about marrying me?” I almost giggled under my breath.
To understand the “think about” question, we have to go back to when Benjamin and I were just friends. One night he asked me if I would “think about” going on a date with him. By this point we had already spent a lot of time together and done things that would be “date-like” without calling them a date. I agreed, and assumed he would set up a day and time for our “first date.” A week or so later, he hadn’t ever said anything again, and I was wondering what happened. He asked one day, “So, have you thought about if you would go on a date with me?” What? Have I thought about it? Of course I’ve thought about it! I’ve been thinking about it for months! I can hardly think about anything else! I expressed something about how I thought I had already said yes, and he reminded me I had said yes to thinking about it, but not yes to going out. Okay, fine, so yes, I’ll go out on a date with you! Tell me the date and time, and I’ll be ready.
On our first date in January 2002, he picked me up in front of the dorm with a red rose waiting in the passenger seat of the car. We went to dinner (I think, it’s a bit foggy), then went to a pottery store where we painted our own pottery and left it for the shop to fire and glaze. It was so creative and fun! I was impressed to say the least.
Fast forward a month or so, and I get another of these “think about” it questions. “Joy, would you ever think about going steady?” I again said yes, forgetting the trouble we had with this question before, and again, assuming that we were now “going steady.” The next day I referred to him as my “boyfriend” in front of some people, and he gave me this surprised look. We discussed it later that day, and he clarified that once again, he was honestly asking me to “think about” going steady, and was still waiting for an answer after I had thought about it! Well, I thought it about it plenty before he asked, so yes, I was interested in going steady, as a matter of fact, I thought we already were!
So now, here we were again, with this “think about it” question, the biggest one of all. And this time, it was a good thing he asked me this way. Because one of the things I had always promised myself was that I wouldn’t marry a man who was in the military. I had heard too many stories of military divorces, of men who were deployed overseas and either didn’t come back or came back physically, mentally, or emotionally damaged for life, some who were never the same again. It crossed my mind to say, Yes, I will marry you, but not until you are out of the military. Then I thought again, marriage brings so many ups and downs, so many changes, and if something happened to him on a deployment, wouldn’t it affect me deeply even if we weren’t married? If I was willing to go through life, marriage, to go through a military deployment as boyfriend and girlfriend, why wouldn’t I be willing to go through anything with him as my husband? If he really was the right one, the Lord would enable us to get through anything we needed to together. So instead of saying “Yes but not until” , just said, “Yes.” Of course, then I had to ask what question I was answering, “Yes I will think about it” or “Yes I will marry you.”
Of course it was the latter, and with that, he slid onto my left ring finger a braid of grass, knotted perfectly to the size of my finger, until it rested tenderly near the gold promise ring from my dad.
At some point a few weeks earlier, during one of our conversations about the future of our relationship, I had realized that the only thing stopping Benjamin from proposing to me was lack of money to purchase a ring. I told him not to let that stop him, especially since I was so picky, and might enjoy selecting our rings together. So I was expecting a proposal without any ring at all. Yet here he was, on his knee with his most precious gift – his thoughtful, caring, creativity and ingenuity, making something from nothing, turning a special moment into a precious one.
We headed home to my parent’s house, and said nothing to the family. But it didn’t take long for an inquisitive sister to notice something odd about my left hand and point it out (I don’t remember now which sister it was). My family was ecstatic for us, and wanted to know how everything happened. We had fun telling our story, and anticipating what was to come.
I still have the grass ring in a little Ziploc bag in my jewelry box with my expensive jewelry. I didn’t wear it except for just a few days, so that it wouldn’t be destroyed. We did pick out our wedding bands together, and I adore the simple delicate eternity band we selected for me. One of these days, maybe I’ll get a second ring with some larger diamonds that looks like it is braided or woven to remind me of that delicate grass ring he first gave me.