In 2017, during college I was working at the Super America in Kerkhoven. Matt worked for MN Dot and was plowing highway 12 and would stop in every so often. I knew of him from going to the neighboring school and having mutual friends, but had only talked to him in those short interactions we’d have in the checkout line. I always remembered him as just being so kind and genuine, and having a great smile. He’d walk up the counter with a “hey how’s it goin’?” There was something about him. Years had gone by, it was now September 2020. I was at my friend Jenna’s apartment one night, and like today's modern dating, she suggested I make an online dating account. I wasn’t very interested in it but thought why not. I can’t remember if it was before or after quickly making the account that I told her “I need to get Matt Dittman’s phone number”. 10 minutes later Matt and I had matched, and he had messaged me. My heart was beating out of my chest. We had talked that night which turned into hanging out the next day. Of course this was during COVID so it didn’t leave many options of things to do. We drove around for hours and talked about everything under the sun (mostly racing) lolol. He was so easy to talk to and it felt like we’d known each other for years. I was now working as an assistant store leader at Kwik Trip and it turns out his coworkers were encouraging him to get my number for a while, but he was always too nervous to do so. One of the things he told me in our early conversations was his favorite quote. “Everything happens for a reason” That it does. We continued to hang out almost every day, at the time I was helping out at a new store in town that had just opened and I was doing the closing shift. Matt would meet me after work at about 11:30pm many nights those couple weeks to hang out. He always made me feel special and I always looked forward to his “fun fact of the day”, but felt sort of bad because he had to be at work at 6:30am. His coworkers would joke that “Dittman was on the night shift last night”. October 24th, 2020 we were at our friends Ryan and Jaylynn’s house watching movies. He was acting so weird and nervous, which basically gave away what he was planning on by the end of the night. We had gone back to his house to get my jeep and I was about to go home. He pulls out a bouquet of roses with a note “Will you be my girlfriend?” I obviously said yes. He then proceeded to tell me to wait there. He ran inside and grabbed some blankets, and we star gazed in the back of his pickup truck.