Letter

by Barbara Combs Williams

Created on: July 15, 2009

What I wouldn't give to have a piece of paper in hand that verifies my husband's marriage proposal to me. We have been married for over thirty years and memory being such as it is when we age, neither one of us can remember exactly what happened when we became engaged. At this point in time, I am not even sure we were ever engaged. If I only had written proof of when and where the momentous event took place, we could put this old argument to bed. Maybe a ragged piece of paper with "what do you think about us getting married?" or even "how about us getting hitched?" will suffice. A date, a time, and a place would clear up all these lapses in memory.

Just like any good insurance policy, warranty or guarantee, "get it in writing." My husband claims to this day that he remembers quite clearly what transpired. I have my ideas, but which is the real story depicting what actually took place. Ladies and gentlemen, put your lovely intentions on paper, even if it is just a simple statement like "will you do me the honor of marrying me and be mine forever," because you never know when it might be needed to settle an old argument and that may be all that stands between you and your sanity.

We met in college and had been dating for a few months. He says he came to my dorm room and sat down on the one of only two chairs in the room, while I was sitting on the bed and asked me to marry him. I ask him when did this take place exactly and he looks at me with a sheepish grin and states that he knows when, but maybe I don't. He's right, I don't know when. You wouldn't think that one could forget something as important as a marriage proposal, but I am cloudy in my remembrances these days and it's just not as clear as it used to be.

I remember somewhere around the late winter trying to figure out if I would get a dorm room for the next semester and what would I do if I didn't get one. Our college was a very large one, but the freshmen got first priority when it came to getting on-campus housing. We were at the time juniors and left to fend for ourselves when it came to housing. Now, I remember commenting to him that I would need somewhere to stay if the worst happened and I didn't get on-campus housing. I will admit that we were sitting in my dorm room, but what I remember him saying was, "don't worry, we can get together and get married student housing." Not a very romantic way of saying things and certainly not full of flowery phrases. He even admits that the "L" word was never mentioned, and I know that he didn't get down on one knee or anything silly like that. No matter how you tell it, it does not sound like a marriage proposal, just a business proposition. The start of our new lives together was just a way to take care of a difficult housing situation.

I remember him then going on about us getting married later in the year and that way we could then apply for married student housing and so on and so on. He's always been a very pragmatic sort of guy and making these kinds of plans was what he is very good at. I never said yes, because he never asked me to marry him. He just suggested an alternate scenario to a difficult situation and like any solid minded person I agreed that it did take care of the problem. You would think that this sort of person would have written down what his intentions where and exactly how to go about it, but for once in his life he was being spontaneous and that was as close as he could get to being romantic.

Get it in writing, unless you have a mind like a steel trap and can retain every little bit and piece of conversation you ever had. One day it will be thirty years later and you need something to jog your memory, because sometimes you can't remember what happened last week, and certainly not what happened more than three decades ago. A good marriage proposal can be likened to your favorite recipe book; you sometimes need written proof of all the ingredients that make up that delicious stew, even if you prepare the same dish every Sunday.

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