A Love Story for the Ages — Part 2 — The Proposal

This is Part 2 to the love story of how my wife Har­monie and I have got­ten to the life we enjoy today.  If you missed Part 1 to this series please check it out here: Part 1 — How We Met.  Now the con­tin­u­a­tion of the story.…

We met for din­ner that night and had lots of ques­tions for each other.  The sparks were fly­ing, so we began feel­ing each other out on top­ics rang­ing from our jobs to child­hoods.  We had a great deal in com­mon and I still couldn’t believe I had met her online.  My pes­simism towards online dat­ing sites began to fade with each hour I spent with Har­monie.  Din­ner was fin­ished, and as we went out sep­a­rate ways for the night, I knew this was the begin­ning of some­thing special.

The very next day at work, I was informed I would be deploy­ing in two weeks.  This struck a dis­turb­ing chord with me.  I had just enjoyed the best day of my life up to that point and couldn’t imag­ine Har­monie would want to con­tinue dat­ing some­one she just met and who is leav­ing for four months.  I wres­tled over ways to tell her the news and the next day I finally just told her.  We sat down and dis­cussed every­thing involved with me deploy­ing, from me hav­ing to put my belong­ings in stor­age to the dif­fi­cul­ties of a long dis­tance rela­tion­ship, espe­cially such a new one.

I could tell dur­ing this con­ver­sa­tion we were both ner­vous about what would hap­pen.  Our con­nec­tion was unlike any­thing either of us had ever expe­ri­enced and we were only a few days into know­ing each other.  Then out of nowhere we came to an agree­ment.  We decided to store my stuff at her place and we would stay com­mit­ted to work­ing on a rela­tion­ship upon my return from Afghanistan.  This seemed like a great idea, but I felt like it wasn’t enough.  From the moment I met her, I knew I wanted to spend my life with her.

Two days later was Valen­tines Day, the 6th day of us know­ing each other, and Har­monie made it a very spe­cial day.  She dec­o­rated her entire condo and cooked an unbe­liev­able meal.  Although nei­ther of us care much for Valen­tines Day, it gave us the oppor­tu­nity to have a very roman­tic evening.  Our love for each other was grow­ing at an incred­i­ble pace and with the deploy­ment loom­ing over our heads, we started truly believ­ing we could make this work no mat­ter what.  The fol­low­ing day changed our lives forever.

Now, one week after meet­ing, we were mov­ing my stuff from my apart­ment into her place.  Car­load after car­load, we drove things from one side of the city to the other.  As the day pro­gressed, as we were load­ing the last things into our cars, a strong feel­ing washed over me.  I couldn’t under­stand it imme­di­ately, but on our drive back to her house, I was fol­low­ing her in my car and I saw a Jared’s (a jew­elry store) and then it hit me; I’m not going to let this woman go, so I’m going to ask her to marry me.

I went into the store and told the sales­woman what I was doing and I’m pretty sure she thought I was crazy.  To make things tougher, Har­monie was tex­ting me on my phone ask­ing where I was.  Telling her I was stuck in traf­fic, I had to pick out the ring quickly.  I browsed through hun­dreds of options and one ring stood out.  It was a very ele­gant, yet sim­ple ring that I just knew she would love. (Now at this point, most of you prob­a­bly think I’m nuts, and I may have been, but it wasn’t going to stop me.)

The tough­est part of this whole sit­u­a­tion? I may have had a good idea she would say yes, but it had only been 7 days.  What if she thought I was out of my mind?  I might be walk­ing in and propos­ing, all to make this entire mov­ing in sit­u­a­tion com­pletely uncom­fort­able, but some­thing told me it was all going to work out.

I quickly got back to her place, walked in, and asked her to come give me a kiss.  Just before she got to me, I went down on one knee, took a deep breath, and asked the woman of my dreams to marry me.  As I looked at her gor­geous face, I opened the box and tears started run­ning down her face.  With an emo­tional “yes,” I placed the ring on her fin­ger and we kissed, rejoic­ing our new engage­ment.  This was a new begin­ning for us and many uncer­tain­ties remained, but we both knew one thing for sure: We were madly in love with each other and that’s all that mattered.

Thank you for read­ing the sec­ond part of my Blog Series, A Love Story for the Ages — Part 2 — The Pro­posal.  While writ­ing this I real­ized I would never change a thing about how I pro­posed to my wife.  It may have been hasty and uncon­ven­tional, but with­out my wife, I wouldn’t be half the man I am to this day.  I love you with all my heart Har­monie Meyer!

Related posts:

1. A Love Story for the Ages — Part 1 — How We Met