Often I do things I don't plan on doing. Tonight was no exception. In the middle of watching a cooking show, a benign cooking show. A show that shouldn't have any impact on daily lives on history, on stories that my kids should know, something happened.
A man proposed to his girl friend. A proposal.
At that moment. I realized that my children didn't know how I proposed to their mother. So I decided to tell them.
This shouldn't be a big deal I guess. But it is. Because we're divorced. We don't live together. We don't love each other like we did in that moment. It's not the happy ending.
Tonight, all I could think about was the fact that they needed to know the story. To hear what I felt. To hear my nervousness, my panic, my clumsy non-proposal that was more honest than a simple "will you marry me" and more indicative of the need, fear and passion that I felt at that moment.
I told them the story. I told them of my fear, of my nerves, of my shock. I saw their mother walk off the plan. Ring in my hand. Hidden in an Eddie Bauer hoodie. Hands gripping it as hard as I could. Words. Usually something I had no shortage of, seeing vacant and absent. I told them how I saw her walk to me and brought out the ring.
I didn't ask her to marry me.
I told her this meant she couldn't leave me again. Which was because of the long distance relationship we were in. And because I didn't know how to ask.
I even showed them the ring. Yes I have the ring. It was given back. That often happens in divorce. But I've kept it. Because despite the chaos. Despite some vitriol. Despite the rough and horrid times. It's an heirloom. Heirloom is history. The ring. Even though things didn't end as planned, is their history. They deserve to know.
I told the whole story. I showed them the ring. I told them how nervous, how scared, how petrified about life I was. I put on a hoodie and showed them how I looked when their mother walked off the plane. Scared. A child. But convinced I was ready.
It doesn't matter that I wasn't. It doesn't matter that things didn't end as their mother and I expected. It doesn't matter that we are divorced.
It matters that they know the story. That they know the love in my heart when I proposed, the love and fear and ecstasy that encompassed it all.
It matters they see the ring. It matters that they know how I proposed. It matters that even though our current lives don't fit the prescribed status quo, they were born of love.
I was madly in love when I proposed. It matters that my children know that.
