September 14

Five years ago, I stood at the top of Prospect Mountain in Lake George, New York, with a young man kneeling at my feet. I knew what he was about to ask me; in fact, I wanted him to ask. Time stood still. I waited to hear him utter the question I had expected to be coming, had hoped to be coming, had been anticipating for months. It was one of life's surreal moments, an event imagined vaguely enough times that its actual occurrence was hard to separate from its predictable trial runs in my mind.

He asked.

I was speechless.

And finally, with knees trembling, I responded not unlike my mother had, some thirty years before: "Of course I will!"

The love I have for this man today overshadows so significantly what I was feeling back then, I am impressed that we took our leap of faith when we did! It is hard for me to go back in my mind to a time when we lived 500 miles apart, saw each other on alternate weekends, and mailed mushy love cards through the actual US Postal System. I remember when it was new to wake up next to him in the morning and realize that neither one of us had to "go home" anymore. I felt like such a lucky girl.

And you know, I still wake up lucky. Each morning as I stretch out my hand to touch the face of the one I love, I am reminded of what a gift he is. He is a rare version of today's twenty-something man, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the best thing that has ever happened to me.