Although Remy and I “officially” met in Fall of 2019, I’d say our story started weaving together years prior. Fall of 2015 is when I, a University of Michigan freshman and member of the track and field team, hosted a prospective hurdler named Roland for his visit. I’d like to think I did a pretty good job being his host, because that next year we were teammates. As our friendship grew into a brotherhood, we’d often talk about and pray for our respective family members. This included his older sister, a hard-working student and accomplished hurdler at Northern Illinois University. And, you guessed it, this older sister’s name is Remy. Remy and I had only heard of one another leading up to that fateful fall of 2019, when Remy came to Ann Arbor to visit Roland (who was my roommate at the time). From the very moment she walked through the door and introduced herself, I was astonished by her contagious energy and her wide, beaming smile. But, I immediately waved that thought away, since being attracted to your bro’s sister was an *extremely* serious violation of the bro-code (it’s in the handbook…I think?). Fast-forward to early 2020, when I received a text from a “mysterious” number. Turns out, I had also caught Remy’s eye, and she took the first “leap” in our relationship by getting my number from Roland. After a few months of non-stop texting and late-night Facetimes, we both felt an ever-growing sensation of peace and endearment as we constantly confided in one another. I got my “blessing” from Roland (a conversation he enjoyed a little too much if you ask me), and Remy and I decided it was time to take the next step in our new journey. We met up for a picnic in Kalamazoo, MI, the halfway point between us at the time. And that day on July 8th, 2020 was when we made our special relationship official!

Blake asked in the sweetest and most thoughtful way. It’s a long story, but I’ll try to keep it short. Blake has always expressed his love for me through poems. When he first asked me to be his girlfriend, he wrote me a poem and recited it by memory on our first date. The last sentence of it was "I want to do life with you." Fast-forward to our two-year anniversary in July 2022; Blake wrote me 22 poems in a book titled "Simple truths for my lovely Remy." The poems looked back at our shared times together, and the adventures we looked forward to. He also included QR codes that led to our favorite songs and pictures of us. The poems were for me to read while I was away at Medical School. I could only read one poem a week, so I always looked forward to the next poem at 12am every Sunday. Towards the end of the poems, I noticed a pattern. The first letter of the title of 15 of the poems were colored yellow. I didn't think much of it at first because I love the color yellow, but the more I pondered it, I realized it wasn't random. Blake had snuck in a secret message. Eventually, I figured out that each of the yellow letters spelled out “To do life with you.” I felt like I had cracked the code, but I would later learn that there was even more to come. When I got back home from school that December, Blake planned something special. He surprised me with scented candles, yellow flower petals and one last QR Code to scan. It led to a video of him from almost a year earlier. At the end of the video, he referenced Matthew 19:30: "But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first." I used that verse to find the final secret message: when I took those 15 titles with the yellow letters, and put the last letter of each title together, it spelled out "Will you marry me?" He even had the title of the last poem end with a question mark! I of course said yes, and we were officially engaged! It was the sweetest and most thoughtful thing, and I was amazed that I had the book for 5 months and never realized that a proposal was slowly being revealed to me over that time.