Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Proposal Stories

We learned today through Facebook that a friend's daughter became engaged to be married. She'd gone to Scotland with her fiance and he popped the question at Dalmor Beach on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.
A photo showed the two wrapped in windbreakers, standing at water's edge beaming. I smiled when I read the post and saw them there. That will be a story they'll always remember.
Everyone has a story.
My grandmother Willie Watson told me her story many years after my grandpa died. She said she attended the small Baptist church near the #10 coal mine here in Walker County.
It was a Sunday in late spring and the preacher had raised all the windows as high as they'd go, to allow the breeze to stir. There were no screens.
She was sitting on the back pew holding her long black hair off her neck with one hand and fanning herself with the other. It was one of those cardboard fans, with a picture of Jesus on one side.
She glanced out the window and noticed a young man looking in at her. She quickly turned back to look at the preacher in the pulpit. When she looked again out of the corner of her eyes, he was gone.
She didn't think anything else about him until a while later he reappeared outside the window, except this time he'd stepped a little closer and tossed a red rose into her lap. A few months of courtship and they were married.

I've told the story of how Jilda and I met and married, so I won't retell it here, but you can read about it here if you'd like.
I'd be interested in hearing your story if you'd like to share it.




12 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:25 PM

    Loved this story & also the one about you & Jilda!!

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  2. So many people who have more then one marriage these days.
    I think that a good relationship needs love, respect and laughter. And the rest is hard work, it doesn't come easy.
    Loved the story about you and Yilda. I wish you both many happy and healthy years to come!

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  3. You are a true story teller!

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  4. funny how people decide who will make and who will not.
    My husband and I stay strong going on 37 years now.Time sure flies.

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  5. Rick, I really love your story of how you and Jilda married... I laughed and I cried a little too... I think part of the problem with relationships not lasting is that people give up too easily ... so wonderful to see you two stuck it out and are SO happy as well :)

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  6. Awwwwwwwww grandpa KNEW how to woo a Lady!!! What a man! No they don't make em like him anymore! No, no, no, no!

    Take care
    x

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  7. Lisa and I met through work. She's a professor here and I am an admissions counselor and it all started with a random work email (we don't even work in the same campus branch). I will head over to read your and Jilda's story now :)

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  8. I saw a link to your post on Nana Diana's blog...my story is, I bought the little cottage next door to Dave and, one snowy, cold February day, commenced to move my belongings from my little apartment across the street. (The huge old house had been cut up onto 3 apartments and I had the smallest.) As I moved "stuff" across the street, he called out to me, "Would you like some help?" Puhleeze. So, he put on his coat and begin carrying stuff from the little apartment to the little cottage. Eventually, I asked if he'd like some coffee...and from the smell, I figured he could use a cig break as well... and he said yes. As we sat talking, drinking coffee and he smoking, he admitted, "I really just came to help because I thought you were stealing from Mrs. Campbell."
    Mrs. C. had been dead more than a year and I'd bought the house from her brother. I just laughed and said, "If I'd been stealing, wouldn't I have been carrying stuff OUT of the house and not INTO the house?
    He looked sheepish and laughed.
    So, it's not an engagement story but it's a beginning story. We dated 6 years (he was grieving for his first wife who died the year before we met) and Dave never proposed. We just began talking about moving and that transitioned into marriage and Thistle Cove Farm.
    Now, I'm a new to me widow with only memories and the dogs to keep me warm.

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  9. What a sweet story -- a red rose. He was a romantic guy. I guess I don't have a story for now.

    Love,
    Janie

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  10. What a sweet story! My friend introduced my husband to me (after begging her to do so). I turned into a 12 year old girl, blushed, and couldn't seem to form a sentence - I just giggled. Fortunately, he was not deterred, and called me later to ask me out.

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  11. In our 24 years of marriage, the only thing he's ever thrown into my lap was the dishtowel. Sweet stories, Rick. Fascinating actually......

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  12. That was so sweet, him throwing the rose in her lap! Speaking of sweet--I worked in a donut shop and Bruce was a truck driver who stopped in every morning for coffee, then he started stopping in later in the day with a single red rose in a white bud vase. We dated, he gave me a diamond ring in the parking lot of the donut shop, we were married 18 months after we met, and now it's 30 years and counting.

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