“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”
(Nelson Mandela)
Bachelor #5 arrived to pick me up, looking his usual handsome, but more dressed up than was typical for our dates.
He took me to his favorite restaurant at Sundance Resort. We had a table by the fireplace. The service was excellent; the food was delicious. Everything was perfect.
The only odd aspect of the evening was that Bachelor #5 asked our server to take a picture of us at dinner. He’d never done that before, but I figured we’d known each other six months and he’d decided it was time for us to take a picture. I’ve never been a fan of photos taken at a table and tried to get out of it but Bachelor #5 insisted. I said, “But wait. What if I don’t like the picture?” to which he replied, “Oh well, I will!” and the server snapped the picture and documented the moment. An ordinary moment, I thought.
There are no ordinary moments, by the way. I was soon going to remember that.
We finished our meal and went for a walk on the wooded paths that are Sundance. It was a beautiful evening. Mountain flowers were blooming, birds were singing, you could hear the breeze gently blowing through the pine trees; fish were swimming in a little pond. We walked around a corner to a very private spot at the bottom of the mountain, facing beautiful pine trees, and Bachelor #5 stopped. He turned to face me and said, “I’ve actually brought you here for a reason.”
“I brought you here so I could propose to you.”
I was shocked. I argued, “You have not!”
He smiled at me and patiently said, “Yes, I have. Now, don’t move and don’t say anything.”
He got down on one knee, held both of my hands in his, said the most beautiful things he could ever have said to me…and then he asked me to marry him.
A perfect proposal of marriage. Right out of a fairy tale. (Minus the pumpkin coach, of course; we had traveled there in a Honda.)
I hadn’t been expecting anything of the sort that evening. I think it was Thomas Jackson who said, “Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy if possible,” and that night, I guess I was the enemy. I was so surprised, I can’t even remember the exact words Bachelor #5 spoke, I just remember how overwhelmed I was by the reality of the moment, and that in it he covered every hope, fear, concern and dream I’d ever had–especially since beginning my unexpected life.
“A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes.” (Mark Twain)
Is that wedding bells I hear?
Maybe.
I’ll tell you tomorrow.
