“Thin love ain’t love at all.” My favorite writer of all time, Toni Morrison, wrote this in her novel Beloved in 1987. This is a line that I have contemplated getting tattooed on my arm multiple times after a cocktail or two on West 4th street, and a statement that I know has to be true now that I am preparing for marriage. I met my fiancé, Ian, when I was just 17 and a freshman in college. I wasn’t the typical bright-eyed bushy-tailed, nervous and naïve freshman. I was a 17-year-old young woman dealing with grief and loads of it. My father had passed almost exactly a year before I moved into my dorm room, and I was confused, hurt, completely out of balance and disillusioned. I was broken. But as Leonard Cohen said in his song, “There is a crack, a crack, in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” And my heart was shattered, so I suppose it was ready for some light. And that light came. It came in loudly, dancing, smiling and attracting all of the girls on campus. And that light, Ian, asked me to be his girlfriend our freshman year. We continued our relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend for eight years.
Our relationship had been filled with highs and lows, just like life. And a week before Ian proposed was a week when we were experiencing one of our “it-can’t-get-any-worse-than-this” lows. I was consciously trying to practice patience and gratitude but failing as I was fighting the urge to be jealous and impatient. Two of my best friends were already engaged, and I was seeing our anniversary plowing toward me along with the expectations others had for us to be “engaged already.” I saw that 8-year mark as THE year—the year that I needed to release the “girlfriend” medal and grab that “fiancé” trophy. This had to be the year that people would finally stop asking us “When are you guys getting married?” And let’s just say, that pressure made me a pretty unpleasant partner that week. The day of our anniversary passed, and Ian asked for us to hang out at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden the following day. I reluctantly said yes since it was an uncharacteristically warm day for November in New York City, and this garden also had and still has a special place in my soul. It was one of the final places my father got to see alive. Ian and I walked around the park for about thirty minutes when he said that he needed to use the bathroom—urgently. He seemed jittery so I assumed it was a genuine emergency. I sat down on a nearby bench and swiped up on Instagram waiting, and waiting and waiting. After getting lost in the latest celebrity feud I was reading about, one of Ian’s friends walked up to me with a picture of Ian and me from our freshman year of college. I was completely confused when he said that he found this picture of us laying in the park. He then asked me to walk with him so that he could show me where he found it. As we were walking, he put ear buds in my ears, and I began to listen to a recording of Ian reminiscing on our relationship and what it meant to him. He went on to talk about important elements in the environment and connecting it to our relationship (he studied biology so this was his version of clever and romantic), but I couldn’t focus due to the sobbing that immediately ensued. Ian’s friend and I continued walking through the garden, and at different sections of the garden another one of Ian’s childhood friends was holding a different picture of us from college. With each friendly face and each picture, I cried more. I knew what was happening, but what made it even more special was knowing that the friends he grew up with were present and ushering us into this next stage of our lives. And this was the final place my father saw before he passed. I finally got to the coy pond, and there Ian was, fully changed and on one knee. He asked me to marry him and I said yes before he could even finish.
Once Ian and I got home, I was surprised by all of our family and friends. I’m not one for surprises, but this one got me to my core. I cried, and cried, found my mom and cried some more. We ate, drank, prayed and did toasts. Everyone around the room shared some loving words for me and Ian and the journey we were getting ready to embark upon, and then it was finally my turn to speak. I can’t remember what I said, but I remember looking at Ian, looking at our family and friends, and feeling different. I felt genuinely happy, seriously joyful, perfectly at peace. There wasn’t a shadow of sadness or sensing that something or someone was missing. I felt put back together again. And one of my friends could feel that energy too. She told me that as I was speaking, the sun came out from the clouds and a thick ray of light rested on my shoulders, and she knew that my dad was there. I guess the cracks in my heart were finally filled with the light that was let in that day.
Our relationship had been filled with highs and lows, just like life. And a week before Ian proposed was a week when we were experiencing one of our “it-can’t-get-any-worse-than-this” lows. I was consciously trying to practice patience and gratitude but failing as I was fighting the urge to be jealous and impatient. Two of my best friends were already engaged, and I was seeing our anniversary plowing toward me along with the expectations others had for us to be “engaged already.” I saw that 8-year mark as THE year—the year that I needed to release the “girlfriend” medal and grab that “fiancé” trophy. This had to be the year that people would finally stop asking us “When are you guys getting married?” And let’s just say, that pressure made me a pretty unpleasant partner that week. The day of our anniversary passed, and Ian asked for us to hang out at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden the following day. I reluctantly said yes since it was an uncharacteristically warm day for November in New York City, and this garden also had and still has a special place in my soul. It was one of the final places my father got to see alive. Ian and I walked around the park for about thirty minutes when he said that he needed to use the bathroom—urgently. He seemed jittery so I assumed it was a genuine emergency. I sat down on a nearby bench and swiped up on Instagram waiting, and waiting and waiting. After getting lost in the latest celebrity feud I was reading about, one of Ian’s friends walked up to me with a picture of Ian and me from our freshman year of college. I was completely confused when he said that he found this picture of us laying in the park. He then asked me to walk with him so that he could show me where he found it. As we were walking, he put ear buds in my ears, and I began to listen to a recording of Ian reminiscing on our relationship and what it meant to him. He went on to talk about important elements in the environment and connecting it to our relationship (he studied biology so this was his version of clever and romantic), but I couldn’t focus due to the sobbing that immediately ensued. Ian’s friend and I continued walking through the garden, and at different sections of the garden another one of Ian’s childhood friends was holding a different picture of us from college. With each friendly face and each picture, I cried more. I knew what was happening, but what made it even more special was knowing that the friends he grew up with were present and ushering us into this next stage of our lives. And this was the final place my father saw before he passed. I finally got to the coy pond, and there Ian was, fully changed and on one knee. He asked me to marry him and I said yes before he could even finish.
Once Ian and I got home, I was surprised by all of our family and friends. I’m not one for surprises, but this one got me to my core. I cried, and cried, found my mom and cried some more. We ate, drank, prayed and did toasts. Everyone around the room shared some loving words for me and Ian and the journey we were getting ready to embark upon, and then it was finally my turn to speak. I can’t remember what I said, but I remember looking at Ian, looking at our family and friends, and feeling different. I felt genuinely happy, seriously joyful, perfectly at peace. There wasn’t a shadow of sadness or sensing that something or someone was missing. I felt put back together again. And one of my friends could feel that energy too. She told me that as I was speaking, the sun came out from the clouds and a thick ray of light rested on my shoulders, and she knew that my dad was there. I guess the cracks in my heart were finally filled with the light that was let in that day.
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