The Proposal

We celebrated Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) 2010 at Roberson’s Tia Tochi’s  house. We ate tamales, rice, beans, potato salad, and treats and drank apple cider. We danced and the children opened their gifts at midnight.

Roberson and I went home and opened our gifts. We had made a pact to only spend $20 on one another because we are very blessed and have everything we need. We went to sleep and Roberson slept most of Christmas Day because he had to work at the hospital.

I spent Christmas morning cooking frijoles a la charra, pecan sandies and Mexican shrimp cocktail to take to my best friend, Kim’s, house for Christmas Dinner.

At one point, Roberson called me into the room. He told me to take a break and come in to chat for awhile before he had to get up and get ready. I did.

Once there he told me that he had a confession to make. I asked what it was, and he told me that he had another gift to give me for Christmas.

I asked him, “Why? You already gave me my gift and broke the $20 pact!” (He had given me a GPS for my gift because I get lost easily.)

He told me to close my eyes. He left the room for a moment and returned. I opened my eyes and saw a big box, about the size of a box for a child’s car seat. There was a small box of chocolates on top, my favorite.

The big box had a wallet-sized photo of us taken from a wedding we attended in summer 2010. I thought it was cute and I took it off and put it aside. Inside the box was another box, also adorned with a photo of us.

I pulled the photo off and put it aside, too. I tore open the box and found another box – with what else, but a photo of us.

This continued over and over. There were a total of eight boxes – all stored within one another. Each had a small photo of us taped to the outside, from a different era in our relationship.

The eight photos and eight boxes symbolized every year of our eight-year relationship. As I opened the boxes, the photos seemed to go in reverse chronological order from recent to farther back in our history.

The last box had an Apple logo on it. I thought it may be an iPad or something, but it was the wrong size box. There was a plastic envelope taped to the outside. I opened it and it was a receipt for an iPhone 4.

I looked at Roberson and said, “I don’t get it … we already have iPhones …”

I opened the Apple box and saw a jewelry box.

I felt the hot tears welling and I started to cry.

He said, “Open it.”

I pried open the little box and saw a perfect little ring inside.

He said, “Ashley, will you marry me?”

Of course I said, “YES!!”

The Ring