The Proposal Story

So, I realized today that I had never posted the story of my proposal to Jennie, my beloved fiancee. Here it is for your enjoyment. This was originally posted on September 9th.

I had originally planned to propose on December 8th, but seeing as 1) we decided we wanted to be engaged soon, and 2) Jennie guessed my date (though I didn't confirm it), I decided to move it to the Feast of the Nativity of Mary. So after the long debate which took place here over a ring, I went home for a week before coming back out to Franciscan. Having informed my mother of the situation, she insisted on real jewelry and went to get hers. Within a few days, I had at my disposal 2 diamond earrings, a white gold wedding band, a yellow gold wedding band, her 5th anniversary ring, and a yellow gold setting with two diamond chips and a missing center stone, as well as any of the diamonds surrounding the 3/4 kt oval diamond (but not that diamond itself) my mother has in a ring she won in a contest as a teenager. We went to Borsheim's Jewelers, a very well-known jewelry shop. I selected the ring described above.

So anyway, fast forward to earlier this week. I'm a rather elaborate fellow, so I threw out misinformation on Facebook for any of her friends who took it on themselves to find out information for her. As it turns out, the misinformation was unneeded. Then I asked a friend of mine, Heidi, to call Jennie at 2:30 yesterday (half an hour before she got off work) and ask to talk to her before going on a retreat at 5. Heidi agreed. The plan was this: if I tried to take Jen where I needed her to be, she would get suspicious. If Heidi got her there and I showed up, though, she would be less likely to grow suspicious.

So I was in the tower room of the JC Williams Center on campus, proving my stalkerishness by watching for Jennie out the windows (one window looks toward Kolbe-Clare, where she lives, and one toward the Portiuncula-area entrance). I waited...and waited...and waited...Jennie didn't show up. Then I saw a figure that looked like Jennie, complete with characteristic red capris, walk behind a tree...and disappear. I'm not kidding...I could see all other sides of the tree...I never saw the pair of pants afterward. Naturally, I thought I'd missed Jen and lost track of her. I called Heidi.

Heidi, being a good double agent, informed me that she had a text message prepared in case Jennie found her first, so she could just reach to the phone and hit send and I would be informed. By this point, it's nearly 4 pm, an hour late. Heidi had to drive the shuttle for the retreat she had to leave for at 5, so she walked to Lower Campus to pick it up and called Jennie to tell her to come back in a minute. Then Heidi found out that they didn't have a shuttle for her or the retreat and was therefore stranded on Lower Campus at the bottom of the hill. Then she and Jennie were talking over the phone (it's unclear to me who called whom) and Jen said she would go change her clothes and then go get her from Lower Campus. This is about 4:15. Heidi convinced Jen to get her first and then got her to the Portiuncula-area. Then at about 4:20, Heidi text messaged me to tell me that she had Jen where I needed her (the Stations of the Cross on campus). So then the next phase of the plan began. I called Heidi on the phone and she pretended not to have good reception, so that she would have an excuse to come up out of the Stations area and leave Jennie to me. So I waited for her to come up...and waited...and waited...then a group went down to do the Stations, which of course would mean I was getting in their way. So I called Heidi again.

Heidi told me to come down and I could hear Jen on the other side saying, "Heidi, I really need to get going. I need to change clothes before Mass and I need to pick up Marie (her roommate)." Heidi said, "no, just another minute." So then I walk down the steps to the lowest part of the Stations of the Cross. Jen had her back to me, but turned and saw me coming when I was almost there. Apparently, the look on my face made her suspicious, but she couldn't quite tell yet. Jen was still concerned with getting out of there to get ready for Mass and was pleading with Heidi to let her go. Then I hugged Jennie and Jen made this half-betrayed, half-mockingly angry face at Heidi for tricking her and Heidi just giggled and patted Jen on the shoulder and walked away.

Jen then looked at me and started telling me that she needed to go get ready for Mass and I was like, "okay, but why don't we walk over here for a minute?" We walked to the Third Station (I would have gone halfway between third and fourth, but the group that had gone down was on the fourth). I said, "Jennie, do you know what today is?"

"The Feast of the Birth of Mary."

"So you might say that it was when the Immaculate Conception came to birth?"

"Yes," she replied in a sort of mesmerized tone, perhaps missing my point that this was the date that Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, whom we took as a patroness, had come to a certain level of fruitfulness.

I said, "do you know where we are?"

"The Stations of the Cross."

"The Third Station," I said, "where Jesus falls on His knees, and the Fourth Station, where Jesus meets His Mother, the perfect model of the Church, His bride."

During the next minute, she covered her face with her hands, shook her head with her hands covering it, opened up cracks between her fingers, closed them again, started tossing her whole head from one side to the other, etc. Halfway through the first sentence of my little speech, she interrupted me in a shocked voice and cried, "today?!"

Then I went on a minute longer, suggesting that I should likewise fall on my knee before my bride, in imitation of Christ. Then I got down on my knee (at which point she just gazed into my eyes with this joyful, disbelieving look) and said, opening the ring box, "I love you. Jennie B_______, will you marry me?" Then she, unable to speak, just nodded her head a lot. I took the ring and tried to put it on her finger, but she and I were both shaking too much, so I grabbed her ring finger with my left hand and put the ring on with my right hand (having nearly dropped it). Then she bent down and kissed me and I got up and held her and kissed her and held her some more for a while. Then we shared a moment to tease each other about it and walked off, finally letting her change her clothing and get her roommate.

There, that's all I should say. The rest (including the funny stories of the reactions different people had) is hers to tell.

God bless,

Micah