Month: March 2015

Welcome back! This is the final installment of Check Yes or No. Later today, I’ll have the complete story up on a separate page of the blog. Just click on “Tales on Tuesday” above my header to find it.

Thanks for reading!

It had been a normal, uneventful morning at work, and I was just sitting down to lunch with my coworkers. I opened stainless my steel lunch box and pulled out my standard turkey sandwich, baked potato chips, and banana, laying each item out in front of me when the purple paper from Lily’s personalized stationery set caught my eye. I heard the other guys all around me, but their voices and laughter had faded into the background; nothing mattered except for the note from my wife.

I love you, and I wanna be your friend forever.
I’ll never be afraid to take you by the hand.
I know this is how love goes.
Check girl or boy.

My heart stopped, or it felt like it did anyway. The low hum in my ears was replaced by complete silence as I reread the note. Did this mean what I thought it did? Was she…?

I jumped up from my seat, frantically looking for my boss while ignoring my food, but never letting go of that purple sheet of paper. I finally spotted him across the room. Fortunately for me, he was seated near the door, so I ran across the room with the door being my goal, but making sure to stop for just a split second-long enough to shout to him, “Family emergency. I’m taking a personal day for the rest of the afternoon!”

I turned the key in the ignition before I was fully seated in the car. I buckled my seat belt and pulled out of the parking space simultaneously, then sped off in the direction of home. The ten minute drive felt like it took closer to ten hours, and when I finally screeched to a halt outside of our house, I reversed the order of operations from when I’d left work. This time, I was climbing out of the car before I’d turned the engine off. I yanked the key out and hurried up the pathway, throwing the door out of my way. I hurried around the house, looking for Lily, first in the living room then the bedroom, finally finding her in the kitchen.

Breathlessly, I rasped out, “Lily.”

She turned, looking surprised to see me. “What are you doing home?”

I held the note out to her, having never let go of it the entire drive home. “Does this mean…? I mean, are you…?”

Her blue eyes sparkled, and a beautiful smile stretched over her face. “Yes.”

I took the remaining three steps toward her and swept her up in an elated hug, pulling her feet off the ground and spinning her around.

~*CYON*~

Two weeks before our fifth wedding anniversary, I left another of “our” notes for Lily. Just one line this time: Check white or black. I was purposefully vague, not wanting to divulge my plans for our anniversary. When I returned home from work that evening, the little note was tented on her nightstand, exactly where I’d left it that morning. But now there was a little checkmark in the box next to white. I pocketed the paper and went about life like normal for the rest of the night.

I made the call to the limo company the following morning from my cell phone on the way to work, and reserved a white stretch limousine for the night of our anniversary.

Over the next ten days, I was very busy making sure things would be perfect for that night. I’d arranged for my parents to keep the kids overnight, and purchased a pink ribbon from the drugstore one night, carefully hiding it away in my night table drawer. Finally, the big night was upon us, and my mother came and picked up the kids, wishing us a “Happy anniversary” and “Have a great night.” Her eye sparkled mischievously at those words, and if I hadn’t been so close to my mom, I might have been mortified.

Instead, I just smiled my crooked smile at my mom and we laughed together. “Thanks, Mom. For tonight, but even more so, for being right twenty years ago.”

She leaned in and hugged me, but didn’t say anything more.

The white limousine pulled up exactly on time, and Lily looked appropriately surprised. Then she turned just her head toward me and whispered, “I’m glad I checked white.” A quick wink at me, and then she returned her gaze to the limo.

As she stood on the front porch looking out at the fancy car, I pulled the pink ribbon that I’d stashed in my pocket and wrapped it around her ponytail, tying it into the best bow I could manage; a tribute to the pink bow in her ponytail from the day she’d kissed me the first time.

I still can’t believe that we’ve been together for two decades. Two decades, five years of marriage, and two kids later, and I still gaze into her stunning blue eyes with stars in my own. And to think, it all started with just a little note.

**********************

Thank you for joining me in this simple tale of young love. I hope you’ll come back next week when Tales on Tuesday starts a new story: More Than My Own Life, a story of an American soldier deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks and how his wife survives without him during that time.

Blessings,

Here’s the third installment of the story. I hope you enjoy it.

Fifteen years later

I stood in the front of the church, with Marcus and Patrick standing to my left and Pastor French standing to my right. First Jennifer, then Leslie sauntered down the aisle in their lavender dresses, and while they were pretty, neither held my attention. When the two of them were in their spots, the music changed into the traditional wedding march, and my attention was drawn once again to the back doors. I heard the familiar chords and just a few seconds later, Lily appeared in her white dress, her arm linked with her father’s. I was absolutely stunned. I stood there, watching her take small, dainty steps toward me, her smile lighting up the entire room. She was by far the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.

She and her father stopped just out of my reach. Pastor French began talking. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the union of this man and this woman…” I didn’t hear much past that. My mind kept replaying the note she’d written me back when we were in the third grade.

Do you love me? Do you wanna be my friend?

Checking the “yes” box after Mrs. Rose had returned the note to me had been the best decision I’d ever made, either in my first eight years of life or in the fifteen since. I may not have loved her right away, but I most certainly did want to be her friend. And by starting with that step, we’d grown closer and closer and by the time we were sixteen, it was only natural that we’d start dating. Neither of us were interested in anyone else.

As the pastor droned on, I thought back to a year ago, to the night I’d proposed to her. In a testament to her first note to me — which I’d kept, even after all those years — I repeated the words, changing only one, and tented the note at her place when she’d excused herself to the restaurant’s bathroom.

Lily,

Do you love me?
Do you wanna be my wife?
And if you do, well, then don’t be afraid to take me by the hand.
I think this is how love goes. Check yes or no.

Peter

When she returned and saw the paper there, she picked it up and read it, tears filling her eyes. I stood, walked around the small table, and stooped down on one knee, opening the small box with the engagement ring in it. She didn’t answer at first, and after a moment, I started to feel ridiculous and insecure down there. Finally, she flagged down our waiter and stage-whispered to him, “Do you have a pen I could borrow?”

He handed one to her and she made a mark on the note and quickly returned the waiter’s pen to him. Then she turned back to me and showed me the paper. She had drawn a messy checkmark in the “yes” box.

Elated, I rose to my feet and pulled her out of her chair. “Yes?” I whispered.

“Yes,” she enthused.

“Do you, Peter, take Lillian to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, as long as you both shall live?”

Gazing into the clear blue eyes of the woman I loved, I emotionally choked out, “I do.”

*****

I think back to those days often. The first day I saw Lily, the kiss, the time I chased her around the playground, and her note. The little four line note with two boxes that changed my life. And on those days, the days I specifically remember the note, those are the best days. Those are the days I get in touch with my eight-year-old self and gaze into my gorgeous wife’s eyes before playfully chasing her all over our house. She giggles and screeches, and unlike that day so long ago, by the time we’ve been up and down the hall and then around the bed, I always catch her. And then, well, after I catch her, good times are had by all.

That little note has become the cornerstone of our relationship, of our marriage. It was the first of many passed back and forth between us over the years. Several of our major life events have been revealed to the other using that same basic formula. Even things that didn’t matter so much, the same four-line note was always there, in the forefront of both of our minds.

Check chicken or fish

Check Disneyland or New York

Check comedy or drama

I’ll never forget the day she blew my mind with one particular note.

***************

Next week, we’ll wrap up Peter and Lily’s story. Please join me for that! (And it’ll be posted in the morning since I don’t have any reviews that day.)

Blessings,