Yes I realize this will be sappy and probably more sickening than most can handle but it's my memory and I was thinking about it last night so here it is today.

First a quick history lesson on our relationship - we were best friends for a while before we started dating. I was still seeing my high school sweetheart who I had planned to marry but called off the engagement and he was dating whoever at the time too. We were inseparable and confided everything to each other. My mother LOVED him so much and asked me to please marry him instead which drove me crazy - especially when she would tell my current boyfriend over and over that I was out with Papa Bear even though I would be out with 10 people she would only say his name to cause trouble. And God did we argue like hell then! LOL Looking back on it now, I guess that is why we don't argue anymore because we did it so much then. People would ask us why we were such good friends when all we did was fight and Papa Bear would answer them that one day he was gonna marry me so he was sticking around. Never knew that he said that until we ran into an old friend a year after our marriage who told me....but I regress from my memory! Anyway, we finally started dating in April 1996.

My father lived in New Jersey at the time so in June 1996 for Father's Day my sister and I flew up to see him for a week as a present. Papa Bear and I had been more inseparable as a couple than we were as friends if that could be believed so this was really hard being away from him and my heart was literally aching I missed him so much. But being the strong female I thought I should be at the time there was no way in hell I was gonna admit how much to him or anyone else. I talked to him a few times during my stay in Jersey and he did not let on how much he was missing me either. The day we were coming home I called him with the flight info because he wanted to be able to "check" the flight status, etc.

Our flight was delayed 2 hours! Ugh! It was hell. We finally landed back in FL after 1am. I was exhausted and probably looking ever so wonderful. I walked out to the main waiting area looking for my mother who was picking us up. Mom waved with a silly smile on her face and then motioned over to the other side of the airport. There was my sweetie. Dressed to impress - he was in a button up shirt and tie with dress pants. He was holding a dozen white roses (my favorite) and a wrapped gift. His face lit up when he saw me walking towards him and that was when I had the inkling that he loved me as much as he did. Then I opened the card he had made for me (he has quite the artistic talent both then and now). He wrote it all out there. Everything he was feeling, ever dream he had for us, everything...which I will not share details with you because they are just for the two of us (and might really make you cry...or get sick, lol) but I could still recite that card word for word and I still have it to this day along with the crystal couple dancing figure that was in the box. Two months later he proposed to me. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Tissue anyone????

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