May 13, 2007
It’s true what they say about never knowing who you’ll end up with. Scott and I met about four years ago. For the past two years we haven't lived in the same town and until seven months ago we remained very casual friends. That status changed after a fateful lunch on a Sunday afternoon in Waco last fall. Two weeks later he was driving down to San Antonio to take me on a date. The rest, to embrace cliché, is history.
I’ve tried to come up with some clever way to tell the story of our engagement, but nothing can top the engagement itself. Last weekend Scott and I went down to Corpus Christi with some friends for a weekend at the beach.
On Sunday, we all went down to Mustang Island for the afternoon. As the sun was setting, Scott suggested we take a walk.
We walked a long way down the beach, leaving everyone else behind to start the bonfire. (I thought it was weird he didn’t want to help start the fire.) We walked and talked for a long time, until all the other beach-goers called it a day and we were the only people on the beach. (I thought it was out of character that he didn’t suggest we head back to the group and even more so that he turned down my suggestion to do so.) Finally, Scott pointed out the first star and started the following conversation:
“Make a wish.”
“I don’t have anything to wish for, I have you.” (Someone please give me points for such an appropriate response, given the situation.)“Can I make a wish?” At this point, Scott turned me around to face him, then got down on one knee in the surf while pulling a ring out of his shirt pocket.
“Candace, you are my happiness; you are my joy. The past six and a half months have been the best of my life and the only thing I could wish for is for you to be my wife…will you marry me?”
The tears had started as soon as he took a knee and as I tried to say yes, all I could do was nod. With that, he slid the engagement ring that belonged to his grandmother on my finger (after first trying to put it on my middle finger, as he couldn’t see clearly through his own tears).
We both cried a few more tears and held each other, while Scott explained that he had met with my dad a week ago and asked for his blessing, which my dad gave, contingent on the fact that I said yes to the proposal.
After taking our own engagement pictures, we walked back to the rest of the group. We were met with good-natured demands of what we were doing that took so long, which turned into screams was I held out my hand with newly-ringed finger. As the girls screamed, the guys (who knew all along) grinned knowingly and pulled out celebratory champagne and glasses that they had smuggled down from Waco.
Scott wrote the following in a letter to me two months ago and I know no better way to speak about our coming life together: “I know that not every day will be good, but I do know that every day will be better because I am with you.”
