50+ Lifestyles

PUBLISHER’S CORNER

By Kari Smith

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

My husband and I were college sweethearts, and we dated for a couple of years before he proposed to me. Both of us left our home state to go to college, so we spent holidays and summer breaks apart during those years. We didn’t have cell phones or email, so we called each other once a week using a calling card when we were apart.

Since I am a spring birthday and my husband is a fall birthday, I was a year older in school and graduated a year before him. I made decision to go and pursue my dream to be a teacher, and if we were meant to be, we would figure it out when he graduated.

The summer following my graduation, my roommates and I thought it would be a good idea to step outside of our box and stay in Nebraska to detassel for a local farmer. Remember, I said we “thought” it would be a good idea. Looking back almost twenty years, now I can laugh but I still can feel the blisters, scratches, and the exhaustion. During my detasseling experience, my college sweetheart asked me to meet his family in Colorado for vacation. It really didn’t matter if I liked him (but I did), I was beyond ecstatic to get out of the fields for a week.

The place I met his family was a familiar place to them. They had visited several times throughout his life, so the plan was to do the same hikes they did year after year. On Thursday, we started the hike to an old abandoned mine. We were walking a little bit ahead of the rest of his family, so I thought it would be the perfect time to discuss “us.” I’m really not sure what he said, but I do know what I heard.

I heard him say that he liked everything the way it was, and what was really going through my mind was, “I start teaching six hours away from campus next month.” This may be the last time I see him!
With my heart hanging low, we continued the hike, and it was a long hike. We made it to the mine, we ate our lunch and then started the hike back to the cabins. The guy I thought was my sweetheart walked ahead of me and his family, but I tried really hard not to seem like he broke my heart a few hours
earlier. When we were about half way back to camp, he asked me to follow him on this little side trail, so I did.

We curved down a trail to a beautiful area that overlooked a valley in the mountains. The view was breathtaking, but something else stopped me in my tracks. At the end of the trail there was a pile of white sand and a seashell. Without skipping a beat, he got down on one knee and said, “your favorite memory was us walking on a beach, I want this to be your new favorite memory.” He pulled out a jar of salt water that he brought from the ocean (along with the sand and shell). As he poured the water, he lifted the shell, and under it was an engagement ring. My mind was in shock, WHAT ABOUT OUR CONVERSATION EARLIER TODAY? I just stood there. I didn’t say anything, and so for a second time, he said, “Will you marry me?” Fast forward sixteen years later, we are still in love.

May your Valentine’s Day be filled with love and laughter!