When You Know ... You Know, You Know?

You know those syrupy romantic proposal stories that you often hear? The ones where a guy goes to a lot of effort to plan the perfect moment to propose to his special love? Maybe you even have one of those great stories yourself. Well, I don't. Herman and I always laugh about how we ended up engaged because it was not a big extravaganza. Herman hadn't spent weeks and weeks thinking about the perfect way to do it. It isn't the sort of story that gets a group of ladies to let out a collective "awwww" at the end of it. It isn't. It just sort of happened.

But it was perfect.

Today is the twenty year anniversary of the day that Herman proposed to me. I can hardly remember what my life was like before I was with Herman. I think it may have involved a lot of angst and general loopiness about all things relationship related. When I started dating Herman I finally felt like I was coming home ... to a person I always was but never knew to appreciate. Herman helped me appreciate me ... the real me. And I love him for it.

I thought that we had already spent lots and lots of time talking about getting married before Herman officially asked me. I knew a long time before that May 2nd of so long ago that Herman was the guy I was going to marry. So I wasn't totally surprised when he asked me. But apparently Herman didn't think we had discussed it so much. He hadn't made any final decision. After all, who you choose to marry for eternity is a pretty big decision, and he wanted to get it right. 

Without giving all those details away that are kind of sacred to me, here's the short story of how the proposal happened that day:

Okay, first of all, it wasn't that day ... more like that night. We went together to stake conference in the morning, and then Herman left immediately to go see his grandfather and get a blessing. Why? He didn't say, and for some reason I thought that it might be because of the difficult academic week he was facing. It never crossed my mind that he would be concerned about the big marriage decision. He was gone the entire day. I figured I wouldn't see him again until later that week. I was pretty bummed. But then...

At 11:00 I got a call from our dorm lobby. It was past curfew, so technically he wasn't supposed to be inside, but this was before the days of cell phones, and he needed to find a way to see me. He must have sweet talked someone into letting him use the lobby phone. He asked me to come down so that he could say hello. At 11:00? Well, I was young and in love, so I didn't care. We left the dorm and drove about 100 yards to the front of the Drury library, and that's where he parked his car. No heat, no radio, questionable mechanics ... I love that awful car! We talked for a bit. He asked me if I needed lots of material things to be happy. And then ... he totally used the missionary commitment pattern on me. I won't give the whole conversation here, although I recorded it word for word in my journal that day. But the gist was that he shared a couple of scriptures, asked me how I felt about them, told me how he felt about them, and then said that he would really like it if I would marry him. Sweet. Simple. And so, so Herman. I think he has used that exact same pattern with every single major decision we have ever made together. 

So we have laughed about this proposal a lot because it wasn't a super planned out production, but really, I love the way he asked me. I love it because it shows just how Herman operates and what I love about him. Herman is one of those guys who doesn't hesitate to jump right in as soon as he feels that it is the right thing to do. No hesitation. He spent a good deal of time thinking about whether he should ask me to marry him, but once he felt like he had received the answer he was looking for he came to me right away and asked. He felt like he was supposed to ask me, so he did. No wavering. That is how he approaches everything in life. With Herman you aren't necessarily going to get a big planned out production. He doesn't do those sorts of details. But what you do get is a man who listens to promptings and follows them without question once he is sure of what he is meant to do. I love this about him. It has gotten us into some great adventures in the past twenty years. This can be a bit unsettling for people who are big planners and like to have EVENTS. But I like to have moments, if that makes any sense. And life with Herman in the past twenty years has been one sweet moment after another. I can't imagine my life any better or more perfect than that.