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Saying Yes

Last night I went to my monthly Writer's Group meeting. Today I will share with you what I wrote for it. We all had chosen topics suggested by the reader-written magazine, The Sun. The topic, Saying Yes, spoke to me the most after much deliberation. And since I don't write much about my husband on these pages, I decided I'd put this out there, for and about him. Here goes:


Saying Yes
Well, I never really had to say yes. It was all so very mutual.
I remember going for a drive, parking the car and
getting out to walk the empty country road.
It was grey December and the scene appears strangely bleak in my mind.

But it was a momentous decision we were making.
“Why wouldn’t we?”, I asked, gesturing to the
wide open prairie. “Let’s just do it.
I don’t see the point in waiting any longer.”

He was more nervous than I, though. His eyes gave that away.
But with hands jammed into jeans pockets and
shivering a bit from the cold and, I suspect, nerves,
he warmed to the proposal.

“Yeah, you’re right. Why wait?” He said and smiled hopefully at me.
I smiled back, a big wide smile, young and determined and so confident.

Just a few days later, we were sitting on the couch in his living room.
A true bachelor’s couch that was, with cushions that came off
and a wood frame that could be unscrewed, completely disassembled
and packed up in a box. But there on that portable couch,
he presented me with a huge measure of stability in a little tiny box.

A diamond ring. And I said yes
It's not a poem, I just decided to center it. I like it and it was well received by my group.
Funny thing is, as I told them last night, when this event took place, George and I had only known each other three months. We had gone on our first date-that-was-not-a-date (because we were just going to be friends) two months earlier, and we hadn't even kissed until one month prior to this "engagement". But boy, when we knew we knew and it was powerful! And I'd say it's been a great success in spite of the short time frame. 12.5 years later we have a wonderful marriage. We were married in June of 1995, six months after the December walk...

Comments

Lisa Zahn said…
I don't know why Blogger doesn't get the spacing right! Drives me crazy sometimes. I tried about twenty times to put more space after the 'saying yes' piece, but it won't fix it. Ack!
Paige said…
Thanks for sharing your writing - I loved it. And what's funny is that my husband and I were also engaged just 5 months after our first date, and we've been married almost 14 years now. It's not always easy (is anything), but we're in it for the long haul.
(And with the spacing thing, you probably have to go into the html and manually enter the code to get it to break or space the way you want. That's what I've done..)
FYI I'm a total "Fixer," too!
Lovely. Romantic.
I like the way you write, it's very down to earth & real.
I've just finished reading about saying 'yes' as a parent. I find it difficult but it's becoming easier with practice.
Blogger does my head in too, I'm to stuck in my ways to move on though...Xxx
denise said…
Nice!

Yeah, blogger does weird things. You have to go into the HTML sometimes and add a break. Not too intuitive though. Or the broken spell check!

I love your story. My husband and I also met and became engaged very quickly - we just "knew". It caused a great hoopla amongst (his) relatives and (our) friends (I'm 10 years older than he is - ooooooooh), but we are still together and happy after 8+ years!

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