Today I'm grateful for...
A restful weekend
Great friends that care
Private time with my wife
Beautiful fall weather
Today I was thinking about when I first knew that I wanted to marry Lulu Molina. I remember wondering if there's any true way to know if a person is the right one to spend the rest of your life with?
Lulu and I had been dating for three years and it was time to move forward or move on. Before the engagement trip to Las Vegas, I had made some uncharacteristic (for me) relationship decisions during the time that Lulu and I have been together. We began our courtship just as I was finishing my dental school education, and I had been preparing for the California Dental examination for 6 months, and knew that I had to follow through attempting to be licensed to practice dentistry in California. The preparation for dental exams is quite extensive and costly, plus I really had my mind set on practicing in California or in a state near there. Since Lulu and I had only been dating for a few months there wasn't a lot of relationship expectations when I graduated in June 1993, and I packed up my car for the long drive to California. Lulu and I had discussed our feelings about a future and I had always made it clear to her that I wanted to return to the west coast to live.
Even with all the uncertainty, I knew that after I had taken the exam in California, I was going to return to Ohio and continue my courtship with Lulu. That's is exactly what I did. I arrived back in Columbus in July 1993. Lulu and I not only continued our relationship, but we also grew our love and respect for each other. The next 2 years Lulu and I spending an incredible amount of time together. Our many conversations ended in us about moving to California once Lulu finished her Pediatric dental residency. Lucky for me, Lulu was open to the idea, but if, and only if, we had made a long term promise to continue our life together in marriage.
I made the decision to spend the rest of my life with this wonderfully woman when my father died after having a massive stoke in 1996. My father passed on only living 57 years in this world. (see the picture above my father at 18 years of age he is on the right and his younger brother on the left. He looks a lot like me with darker hair?). Lulu and I had just travelled to California 6 months earlier in part so she could meet my father. I never had much of a chance to get to know the man that 28 years earlier was there to introduce me to the world, but his passing did awaking my since of immortality. His death helped me see that you must sometimes take calculated chances in life, and if you want for everything to be perfect you just might never live? I knew that my relationship with Lulu wasn't without concerns, but if I really wanted to life I needed to take a step out side of my box. So, before the trip to California to attend my father's funeral and wake, I made a plan for the rest of my life.
As a graduating dental student my financial picture was ladened with debt (I finished dental school owning enough money to buy a decent home in 1993), so I was stressed about how I was to come up with equal to one's month salary for an diamond engagement ring (luckily I was only making about $2500/month as a dental associate two days a week and part time faculty member)? I spent the better of 2 months researching diamonds, setting, and cost of rings by visiting most of the jewelry stores in the greater Columbus area (I wasn't using the internet at the time, because I could have saved myself a lot of time). After much trepidation I finally choose a 1 carat round diamond in a gold plain band. I can tell you that the process was much more involved then I would have imagined, but I was so excited that I was going to "pop the question" and ask for Lulu's hand in marriage.
I was to travel to Puerto Rico with Lulu to visit her family for the Thanksgiving holidays and I figured what a perfect opportunity to approach Lulu's father about asking her for her hand in marriage? I don't remember being nervous asking her father to marry her even though I didn't know him very well at all. I just knew that this was the Puerto Rican custom and I was expected to honor it. I think that someone had prepared Lulu's father for my approach, because he didn't seemed surprised by my wanting to marry his middle daughter? Maybe he just liked me and he was happy to get her married off? In any event, he said that I had his blessing and wanted to know when and what our plan was up until the big day? I said that when we knew that he be one of the first to know the plan, and I then turned to thoughts to when and how I was to propose marriage?
We had planned on taking a trip in February to Las Vegas to look at a specific dental practice that we had hoped to practice in, and I know that I was going to ask her to marry me sometime during that trip? So, I set the plan for engagement in motion. I had only been to Las Vegas once before, but I remembered that there were many fun activities for adults there. I have been accused over the 15 years we've been together that I can't remember the details of the important events of our past; however, I can tell you that I remember every second of the day leading up to the time that I asked Lulu to marry me. I was so tense that everything would go as planned, not that she would say yes, but that one of us would get sick after the dinner, or that the helicopter that we were to ride on wouldn't have engine trouble? The day was just flowing magnificently, and when we stepped onto the helicopter I wasn't sure that I could keep up my nerve to ask the question? (I didn't plan on the fact that you have to wear headphones on helicopters, and you couldn't talk to each other on the 45 minute adventure). Lucky, I didn't have to say anything. I just took out the ring box and opened it up to show Lulu and she knew what my intentions were. She nodded with her head forward and back and I took that to mean yes she wanted to marry me? (I just that her head might have been rocking back and forth from the jerky up and down motions of the copter?). I know as we arrived to the helipad my emotions were all over the place. Would I be a good husband, what comes next, how does one act once engaged? I knew that the answers would come in time, and the real important part was that Lulu and I were in love and now on that journey to spending the rest of our lives together.
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