I first met Mike in 2009 when our friend Matt returned home from his deployment. It was around Easter time, so Matt’s mom, Mama Walters, invited me to come over to celebrate. To my surprise, I ended up reacquainting with a lot of familiar faces, which was nice since I did not know a lot of people there. One specifically, was Mike. Everybody called him Freeman or Freek. We all ended up having a great time that night and time went on. Years later, with a ton of social events with the same group of friends, Mike and I would start to talk more as friends. As time went on, we became even better friends and I started to see a whole different side of him. I thought he was the sweetest guy and deserved to be with someone special as well. I even tried setting him up with one of my girlfriends. That was a bust, LOL! At the time I was in a marriage and never thought of Mike as anything other than a kindhearted guy and a really good friend. Throughout the years of our friendship grew. When things in my life took a turn, Mike was just one of the many that was there for me. It really made me appreciate him more as a person. As some time went on, Mike would ask me to hangout to get me out of the house. I agreed and he took kayaking and to get some frozen yogurt. It was such a nice day out. I had such an awesome time that it made me not think of the bad. To everyone else's knowledge, people started to see something developing between us. Even my own niece saw something forming up. During that time, my niece was staying with me over the summer and each day that Mike asked to hangout, she was the prime witness to see the foreshadowing of our future. Needless to say, I needed it spelled out by Mike himself that he wanted just more than a friendship. On 7/6/2016, Mike asked me on a date to go blueberry picking. I was excited and replied, “Absolutely!” Three and a half years later, on 12/15/2019, Mike got down on one knee and proposed to me. Now, he will become my forever on 11/6/2021.