We met about seven years ago. My family went to dinner at Barrett’s Grille, where Don happened to be the pianist for their weekly live jazz night. My parents and I loved listening to the trio and made our dinners there a weekly event, showing up when the music started and staying until the restaurant closed. This is where I learned how much I love jazz, and this is where I fell in love with Don’s playing. Even now, I feel as though I fall in love with him all over again each time I hear him play. A year or two later, after I had been taking piano lessons for awhile and felt that it was time to move on from my instructor, I asked Don if he would take over, and he agreed. It was at these lessons where we realized how well we got along. We would get to talking and before we knew it, the hour had passed in conversation and laughter, and not much piano playing. We met for lessons on and off for a couple of years, throughout which we maintained a sort of mild friendship. He was taken, and we only saw each other at lessons, or at the now-occasional family dinners at Barrett’s; which is why I was so surprised when one night after a lesson, he asked me if I would like to get a coffee next week. I walked to my car with a huge smile on my face and pounding heart. We met up at a coffee shop and fell easily into a conversation which would continue past the closing of the coffee shop, past the closing of the bar we went to next, and for about an hour while we lingered in the parking lot, not wanting to go home. It was that night when I learned he was newly unattached, but beyond that I can’t remember what we spoke about, just how easy it was to be with him. He asked if we could meet up the next weekend, and we did. This past August we celebrated our three-year anniversary.

It wasn’t long after we started dating that we were promising “forever” and starting sentences with “when we get married…”, but the proposal didn’t come until we had been together a little over two and a half years. We were vacationing in Cancun, spending our days lounging on the beach, sipping mojitos, and staring at the bluest water we had ever seen. One clear night, Don suggested we take a walk along the beach. We had the whole place to ourselves as we walked along the shore under a starry sky, chatting over the sound of the waves. I noticed Don seemed a bit anxious, and thought he might be about to propose, but when he said we should turn back I thought otherwise. Just as I turned around to start walking back to the resort, Don was down on one knee with a ring glimmering in the moonlight asking once more if I could promise him "forever". I always will.