This is part 2 of a 3 part story. Please find the links below to the other parts.
We were sitting across from one another with lobster on our plates and champagne in our glasses. I had just gotten named Teacher of the Year and Jason wanted to take me out to celebrate.
I was coming up on thirty, so the answer was yes, I did want to get married. I loved Jason and everything about him, what he did with helping people, and how happy we were together.
“I would love to marry you,” I told him, reaching for his hand across the table. “I would love nothing more than to marry you one day.”
With his free hand, Jason lifted his champagne glass and we toasted. We continued celebrating my award, his early birthday, and our decision to get married one day.
At home that night, we began planning. We said we’d get married in within the year on a ferry boat, because who doesn’t love obscure wedding locations? We would start off with quotes from "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Catcher in the Rye" because they were the books that brought us together. It would be a small wedding with just our families and we would have a nice reception later.
I met his parents two weeks later when they came out west to see what his life was like in Seattle. They were surprised with the lack of humidity, how it was sunny most of the day — they watched "Grey’s Anatomy" and decided that all it does is rain here — and they were also surprised by me.
“A kindergarten teacher?” his mother, Ella, said. Her Boston accent wasn’t as prominent as Jason’s; however, she still pronounced kindergarten like kid-ner-gahden. “That is very humble of you. What made you decide to do that?”
We were drinking tea on the back patio while Jason and his father, George, were watching some game on the television. I took a quick sip and placed my cup back on the saucer.
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “I’ve always loved younger kids and wanted to make a difference. When I was in undergraduate, I was taking an introduction to education class, and all of the sudden I just knew that it was what I was meant to do.”
Ella observed our small backyard, the one that over the three months we had been renting the townhouse, we made a small garden with sunflowers that were just beginning to grow.
“I think it’s quite benevolent of you,” she said. “I am very happy that Jason found someone who loves helping people as much as he does.”
I smiled because I felt the same way. My “perfect guy” was always someone who was very contentious about others, loved charity events, and loved books. Jason was all of these things and more. Each day he never ceased to amaze me with how much he cared for me and his patients.
Jason met my parents the next weekend. We drove down to Portland, where I grew up, and I showed him the same house my parents had lived in since they bought it in the early '70s. My parents were ecstatic that I had finally brought a boy home because I was the last of my siblings to be in a serious relationship. At dinner, over meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and steamed green beans, Jason asked my father for his permission to marry me. My mother cried before Father could even say yes.
As we were leaving dinner and walking to his car — we decided to stay in a hotel that night — he stopped and got down on one knee. He was waiting for my father’s permission, he said, before he could officially ask me.
“So, will you, Carson?” he asked, his crow’s feet crinkling again like they did the first time we met. “Will you officially be my fiancé?”
I crouched down and kissed him and said yes. He slipped the ring on my finger, we cried a little bit, and then we got in the car to only kiss some more.
Telling people felt amazing. A few of the other teachers threw me a small surprise party, and my kindergarteners all made me cards. Jason’s parents sent us a Bed Bath & Beyond gift card and told us to let them know if we were going to have an engagement party because they would fly out here again.
