Let's Do This!

Eric introduced me to Geocaching years ago. It’s an app that shows you a general location of a small box or pill bottle hidden in a tree or under a rock with something stashed inside. Often there’s a paper log to write your name and date found. I was hooked! On a Friday in November '24, I came down with something that kept me on the couch for days. A trip to the VA urgent care confirmed I was in fact sick, with a bonus ear infection. That same Friday, Eric had surprise plans for me – Mean Girls the Musical performed by a local high school theater. Symptoms started that evening, so I wasn’t up for much the rest of the weekend, despite his attempts to get me out. You can imagine my reaction when Eric asked if I wanted to go for a walk on Sunday (the worst of the days). I knew getting up and out was best for me, so I agreed to a short walk. He asked which park I wanted to go to. I irritably glared at him and barked that I would walk out the front door and go from there. Dressed in sweatpants, sweatshirt, gloves, and a winter hat, we left the condo for one of our typical routes. I had plenty of tissues stuffed in my pockets which I knew would be soaked by the time we returned. Along our route there's a Geocache location hidden behind a guardrail. We found it last year when it was new, and Eric suggested we see if it was still there. Unsuccessful in our quest, we continued our walk. Not getting much farther from that point, I asked if we could take an even shorter route home because I was getting extremely fatigued. Eric obliged. We stopped on a little bridge to see how the water was running (because that’s what old people do). As I started to walk away, he said, “Hey – come here.” (That’s weird.) He wrapped me in his arms in a strong hug. Eric is 6’3” and I’m 5’2”. My ear is at his chest level. I say, “Woah! Your heart is pounding!” He says something about being stressed from work. (I didn’t believe it, but also no way was he going to propose to me looking like this.) We continued walking. He asked if we had ever been along a certain section of the river bank, which I respond with a shoulder shrug and a “yeah.” He asked that we go there anyway. If you don’t know Eric, he’s very … clean. Not a guy that likes to get mud on his shoes unless that’s the purpose of the journey. You can imagine my surprise (suspicion?) with this request, as we mush through the soggy field. Slop, slop, slop. We get to the riverbank, and he pulls out a pill container. He hands it to me. “What’s this?” Now my heart is pounding. “Just open it.” Inside is a piece of paper and some green rubber band contraption which he removes. The outside of the note says, in his perfect handwriting, “Shannon Sommers.” Now he is down on one knee. In the wet grass. Which is leaving a stain on his pants. So much for cleanliness. The inside of the note simply reads, “Will you marry me?” That green bundle of rubber bands was a ring he asked my nieces to make, to have something tangible until we picked the real thing. Somewhere between my sniffles and coughs I managed to say yes. We walked back toward the condo but now Eric re-routes us. In a small park-like area with a picnic table, he searches his phone then places it on the table. It starts playing music, and he pulls me close to dance. Eric’s typical genre is alternative or that awful EDM (electronic dance music) garbage, whereas country is usually on my car radio. Surprised again, I hear country artist Cody Johnson’s voice singing, “’Till You Can’t.” Worth a listen, but a line in the song goes, “You can keep putting off forever with that girl who’s heart you hold. Swearing that you’ll ask someday, further down the road. You can always put a diamond on her hand, ‘til you can’t.” When the song was over, we walked back to the condo, holding hands and giddy. We made dinner with a nicer than usual bottle of wine to celebrate. I did not allow him to take my picture that day.