Grateful Anniversary Thursday

Today is my fourth wedding anniversary. Because there is nothing in this world for which I am more grateful, nothing which I hold more dearly to my heart, nothing for which I live more than I do for my husband, today my entire Grateful Thursday post will be about us, our engagement and wedding in particular. It's long, so grab a snack and settle in.

Husband proposed to me in the deserted parking lot of our university's basketball stadium. We had gotten ice cream that night (me, chocolate with brownie bits, him pralines and cream). It was a Tuesday, and he had suggested the trip, looking up at me on the green tweed couch from his corner desk and nonchalantly mentioning dessert, knowing my answer to that is always YES.

As had happened on our first date, we tried to make it back to his place before settling in to enjoy, but it was melting, so he pulled into the lot to eat what was left.

He hardly ate any of his that April night, quietly poking at it like a picky child with his broccoli. Glancing over at me in the passenger seat, he put his sticky cup aside, opened his driver's side door, quickly got out and circled the car, the whole time with me mumbling "wait, where are you going?" through a mouthful of chocolate ice cream. He pulled on my door handle, not realizing it was locked, but I unlocked it and cracked my door, still saying "What is going on?" as he pulled me out. He looked breathless and deer-like.

He knelt on one knee. Now I was yelling, "What are you doing??" and starting to jump up and down a little, one foot to the other, my hand over my chocolate stained lips. He pulled out his cigarette carton, ripped out the tin foil, and twined it around my finger. He said something about marrying him. I don't remember his words, I was too overwhelmed. "Of course!" I screamed and tried to pull him onto his feet, but he had reached into his pocket again.

"I know that you've said you'd marry me with nothing more than a tin foil ring, but I want to do it right. Is this better?"

He snapped open a black velvet box, and inside was an Art Deco-era designed ring with antique diamonds. I was shocked, more shocked by the ring itself than the actual proposal. The next few moments are a teary blur. I had no idea he had been thinking of me and this moment that much.

I called my mom on the way home, and she already knew. He had asked my parents for permission.

Three months later, on July 30, the place had been selected (a rose garden outside an antebellum home), the dress fitted (the first one I tried on), all the family had gathered, and our intimate, elegant wedding began at dusk.

I wasn't nervous, not in the least. My two bridesmaids (I had no maid of honor, how could I pick?) helped me into my strapless dress, lent me a blue scarf to tie around my white rose bouquet, and applied my make-up while we sipped white wine. Katie was nice enough to stand in front of the window the whole twenty minutes it rained, so I never knew until afterward.

My brothers in their tuxes and mohawks and tatooes ushered guests down the aisle. My grandfather lovingly walked my ailing grandmother down the aisle, not knowing the cancer was growing in him that minute, that he would be gone in just over a year. Everyone else made their way down to their seats. Then my bridesmaids stepped out in their black satin halter dresses with their bluebonnet bouquets, hair flowing and flowers behind their ears.

My father and I were left alone, staring at this wooden door leading down the stairs to the garden from the house, waiting for the music to change and the door to my future to burst open. He seemed quiet and reflective but not sad as I thought he would be. No tears. "Don't trip," he told me and squeezed my hand. And the doors opened.

Our ceremony was short and sweet-- we wrote it ourselves for us alone. We had terrible trouble finding someone who would perform it for us. The Episcopal minister said he couldn't do it that quickly as the rules required pre-marriage counseling, and a judge told us it was not religious enough. A childhood friend of my father's came through in the end, driving all the way from Kentucky.

I don't remember him, though. I don't remember the audience, I don't remember the words or the gestures. I just remember my husband, staring into his face, the world whirling around us, all bright green and white, like we were held in a quiet tornado, the old being ripped away and replaced by the new togetherness. When the spinning stopped, we were husband and wife.

After the pictures and at the start of the cocktail hour, my grandmother fell down some stairs. All I saw from where I was standing were her legs in the air, and then a scream, although not hers. I ran to her but no one would let me close in fear that I would lose it. Not knowing what was happening was worse. An ambulance was called, but the EMTs declared her fine, just dizzy and scraped up. My grandfather took her to their room though, where I finally got to see them, but I regret that I never got to dance with him.

Later, the Beach Boys crooned "God Only Knows" while I danced with my father, and Nat King Cole serenaded my new husband and me as we swayed. We selected every song; the DJ must have hated us. No Celebration or Brick House for us, only Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Etta James. We did do the Chicken Dance, in honor of my husband's mid-western family. I only got a couple bites to eat, only one bite of cake-- the one he fed me, and before I knew it the night was ending.

Married people told me that would happen, that it would be over too quickly, that you get so swarmed with well-wishers to the point where you can't stop, you can't think, you can't reflect or ruminate. I remember my friends Joe and Liz telling us our wedding was like something out of Great Gatsby. Exactly what we were going for, I replied. I remember my great uncle and mom cutting a rug on the dance floor, and how beautiful she looked that night. I remember the light of the place, the candles reflecting off the pool, the warm and gracious feeling of everyone together, the love I felt for all of us there, and especially the look on my husband's face as he leaned in to kiss me.

They held sparklers for us in a sort of open tunnel as we ran to our limo. I had long ago removed my shoes, so that hot ember I stepped on didn't feel very nice, and my husband swears he nearly lost an eyebrow. It was beautiful though, and a picture perfect ending.

He did carry me over the threshold, but only after the limo completed its 60-point turn trying to get out of our dead-end street. I stood in the living room, unzipped my dress and took my first deep breath of the night, tracing with my fingers the outline of my corset embedded into my skin. We were starving and so happy to see the picnic basket in the limo, only to be disappointed by the tiny amounts of food inside. We had hungry guests. Husband's apartment was completely packed as we were moving the next day, but we stuck the last frozen pizza into the oven and then ripped it apart (the knives were packed), scarfing it down in his-- no-- our bed. I was still removing bobbie pins from my hair the next morning and had three shampooings to remove all of the hairspray.

Two days later we were in Mexico, and then three weeks later Katrina hit, destroying so much of our state, and we were on a plane moving to London that day, not to see anything we knew for over a year.

So much has changed and yet not changed since then. We're the same, we love each other in the same way, but the world around us keeps shifting. He's my stability, my normality. As is engraved on the inside of his ring, "you are home to me."