Preface: Kendahl’s Story

On June 6, 2008, at 11:00 p.m., I received a call from my boyfriend Dave’s cell phone – but it wasn’t his voice on the other end. In the seconds immediately after the phone connected, my mind went through every possible reason why Dave’s friend Tommy was calling me from Dave’s cell phone, knowing that there was really only one explanation. “Dave was in an accident.”

Five hours later, after an interminable 260 mile mid-night drive from where I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, to where Dave was air lifted in Knoxville, Tennessee, I sat in shock as a doctor took me into a small room and told me that they were just trying to keep Dave alive until his parents got there to say good-bye. I spent two and a half hours by his bed early that Saturday morning, praying, crying, wondering what would happen, until the nurses kicked me out to change shifts.

In the weeks that followed, Dave surprised every person following his story and surpassed every expectation as he continued to improve through ten surgeries, two different types of dialysis, two ventilators and countless doctors and nurses reminding us constantly that he may not survive the next step.

Eleven days after his accident, once we were no longer wondering if Dave would live from moment to moment and I left the hospital for the first time to sleep in a hotel, I began to process the fact that although I had clearly jumped into our relationship with both feet because of the accident, I had no idea how Dave would be feeling if and when he regained consciousness. And for the first time, a question worked its way into my mind: “What happens if he wakes up and doesn’t want to be with me anymore?”

Gradually Dave did start to wake up, and three weeks after his accident, he tried to communicate for the first time. The tracheotomy tube in his throat prevented him from speaking, and he was too weak to hold a pen, so we resorted to lip reading. Talk about frustrating! In the beginning, it was one or two words at a time, always repeated at least twice and always only interpreted after multiple guesses. As time when on, however, I began to understand him more and more, and we even managed a few real conversations.

The Proposal: Dave’s Story

Things seemed to be progressing well for the next few weeks, and everyone began to relax a little bit…until I came down with sepsis, a severe, life-threatening infection, five weeks after my accident. We found out that I had sepsis just after Kendahl had returned to Cincinnati to work for a couple of days, so once again, she got a late-night phone call telling her to get to Knoxville as quickly as possible. Although the doctors had said that a person with sepsis can take weeks to get better, within a few days, my condition improved dramatically.

Kendahl and I had been dating for 16 months at that point and had known each other longer than that. I had been searching my feelings before the accident about where our relationship was heading and how I truly felt, and I had even started to think about proposing, but I had been holding off until I could meet her family and get her parents’ blessing. After seeing the dedication she had for me after the accident, however, I knew she was the one I had been waiting for, and although I realized it wasn’t the ideal way to do it, I decided that I needed to show her how I felt by asking her to marry me, whether I could actually say the words out loud or not.

On Sunday, July 13, 2008, while Kendahl stood at my bedside, I mouthed the words, “Will you marry me?” to her. Unfortunately for me, it was one of the few occasions that she did not read my lips on the first try. My parents and sister, who happened to be in the room, knew what I was saying and began to cry before Kendahl even understood what was going on. So I tried again, and this time, she got it. Thankfully, in spite of the setting, the lack of a ring and the fact that I had yet to meet her family, she said yes.

A few days after the proposal, word of our engagement started to spread through the ICU, and the nurses began teasing me for not getting Kendahl a ring. Luckily for me, my mom noticed a five dollar jewelry sale in the lobby of the hospital and picked up two “diamond” rings for me to choose from to give to Kendahl as a fun placeholder until I could get her the real thing.

After 80 days in the ICU and ten days on the regular hospital floor in Tennessee, I was transferred back to Cincinnati one day shy of three months after my accident. For the past two months, I have been recovering at the Drake Center, only 15 minutes from Kendahl’s house, which has made our lives much easier. Shortly after I was weaned off the ventilator and got my voice back, I was able to call Kendahl’s dad to finally ask for his blessing, which he gave (although I have yet to get the same thing from her three overprotective brothers).

Currently, Kendahl is on fake ring number two (the “diamond” fell out of the first one), her finger permanently green, and we are starting to make concrete plans for our future together. We have set our wedding date for June 6, 2009, exactly one year after my accident, and we plan to hold the ceremony and reception at the Underground, a Christian teen concert venue where we met as volunteers. Kendahl has been diligent in updating a blog (http://daveheckel.blogspot.com) on my progress to keep our hundreds of potential wedding guests informed, and we are all anxiously awaiting the day when we can celebrate together as Kendahl and I make our commitment to each other official.

David Heckel/Kendahl Lund (Cincinnati, OH)

My fiance and I were off to our annual family 4th of July picnic. Very normal day, lounged around till the party started. Get to the party, chatted a bit with family then my aunt called attention to everyone to gather around. She had said that her three children had prepared a cheer about the family and that they wanted to sing it for everyone. Everyone was all excited, we sat and waited for the kids to come out and start. They began with pom poms and all saying \”2,4,6,8 Mark and Jess are really great\”
After that first line i was so excited that they had put me and my fiance first in thier little song. They continue…\”8,6,4,2 We think Mark should Marry YOU!\” Me, still CLUELESS, thinking, O my i cant believe that they would put that in the song, considering people harass us about getting married all the time. After they said that line all three children turned around and on the back of their shirts it said \”Will you marry Mark?\” I looked at them and then i look at Mark (my fiance) and he got down on one knee and said that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and i just about fell over!! I was in TOTAL shock and could not move for about an hour after that. MY whole family was there to see what a sweet job he did, and he involved the three most important children to me as well!! It was absolutely perfect and i feel that nothing can top that, especially the look on my face when it happened!!

The video of this whole event is on YouTUbe.com entitled \”Jess and Mark engagement\” Go on and see for yourself that it is the BEST!!

Jessica Pittman (Pittsburgh, PA)

Sean Palmgren and Betsey Krause submitted this marriage proposal story in our Marriage Proposal Story Contest. Sean and Betsey win a set of $4,300 platinum wedding bands courtesy of Novell Design, pictured here. The contest was co-sponsored by Platinum Guild International. Here’s Sean’s story:

Well, it all started with a dream.

I woke up one summer Sunday morning (June 8, 2008) and looked over at my girlfriend with the biggest smile on my face. I told her, “I know how I am going to propose to you!”

She proceeded to say: “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me.”

I wasn’t going to by any means; I love surprises.

My dream consisted of a bunch of umbrellas lined up in row with each umbrella having a different letter on it to spell out the words “WILL YOU MARRY ME?”

The next step was to figure out when I should propose and without even second guessing myself I decided to do it on June 20, 2008. Knowing that my fiancée, Betsey, had two of her closest friends in town from Florida and California that weekend would make this experience even more memorable.

I now had 12 days to plan the surprise. The first few days consisted of picking out the engagement ring; thanks to the sales consultant who had already been talking with Betsey and her mother made it a little easier and much quicker than I anticipated it would be. So I picked it out, came back a week later to pay for it and to pick up this gorgeous, platinum engagement ring.

Now, having the idea, the date, the ring, it was time to ask the future in-laws for their permission to marry their beautiful daughter. Without any hesitation I went over to their house, bringing a bouquet of flowers for my future mother in law (which doesn’t hurt the situation one bit!) We stepped out to the porch, beers in hand, and I said, “As you know I love your daughter very much and I couldn’t be happier in life than I am with her. I am here today to ask for your blessing to marry your daughter.” Without any hesitation and a few tears (happy tears of course) I had their blessing. As soon as I had their blessing I pulled out a detailed plan of how everything is going to happen for the next few days.

Monday, June 16th – Ordered 30 black umbrellas to be delivered on the 18th.
Tuesday, June 17th – Asked parents for their blessing.
Wednesday, June 18th – Painted the top of each umbrella at a friend’s house to spell out “WILL YOU MARRY ME?”
Thursday, June 19th – Made sure everyone who was involved was very well informed on what was going to happen Friday evening.
Friday, June 20th – The proposal

On Tuesday night, I sent out a blast email to all of my close friends, family and to all of Betsey’s close friends and family to let them in on the surprise. I told them where it was going to happen (Lake Calhoun); what time to meet at Betsey’s parent’s house (7:00pm) and how each of them would be involved. Different people had different duties. There was a group of people who were in charge of getting everyone to the location on time and to practice the proposal. There was a group of people who went incognito and followed around the lake with a video camera. And then there was the group that walked around the lake with Betsey and me.

On Wednesday after watching the FedEx tracking online and knowing the package of umbrellas were delivered I proceeded to head over to my friend’s house. There, the three of us started to spray-paint letters on the top of each umbrella.

The Big Day… I had to convince Betsey that I really wanted to take a “walk” around Lake Calhoun on Friday night say around 6:15pm. Not an easy task, but with the help of her best friend, Molly, flying into town with her boyfriend from Florida made it a little easier to persuade her.

I made dinner reservations at a local restaurant around 8pm so that the four of us would have enough time to have a drink and to walk around the lake. The dinner reservations were a nice decoy. With Molly and Tom arriving at our condo, I told Betsey that we really needed to do this walk because it was a long day at work for me and I needed some fresh air. So we drove over to Betsey’s parent’s house, who actually live a block away from Lake Calhoun. We went inside and chatted for a bit and finally got on our way with the big walk.

Unexpectedly the surprise was almost blown by an early arrival… luckily Betsey’s dad took care of that situation without any of us knowing.

With my hands in my pockets feeling the ring every two seconds made this walk a little nerve-wracking. I also kept looking around trying to find my incognito friends who were on the 007 spy mission filming the walk and not once could I see them. Upon the finish of this three mile walk around the lake we proceeded to walk towards this line of people all holding an umbrella right above their heads.

Betsey was very intrigued on what was going on and wanted to take a closer look so we all played along. About 100 feet away, someone counts 1-2-3 and everyone flips their umbrella over to spell out the infamous “WILL YOU MARRY ME?”

Betsey starts looking around saying, “Oh my gosh, someone is getting engaged!”

I smiled and got down on one knee and slipped the ring on her finger while saying:

 “You know I love you with all my heart and there is no one else I would rather spend the rest of my life with than you… will you marry me?”

With her hand over her heart she said yes!

As if the proposal wasn’t surprise enough, the crowd of umbrella holders started to walk toward Betsey and even more shock was brought to her face. The crowd of umbrella holders started to get familiar to Betsey as they got closer… her mom, dad, brother, cousins, aunt, uncle, close friends and my dad, mom, step-mom, brother, sister-in-law, niece, and close friends were all here to witness a beautiful moment. And a special moment it was since Betsey was so surprised!

After the proposal we all went back to Betsey’s parent’s house for a champagne toast followed by drinks and apps at a local drinking establishment.

Sean Palmgren
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Love is not what I was looking for but what sought out to find me. As a victim of domestic violence my heart was brused, it made me cold and hard to trust anyone else until my love came along and reminded me of how beautiful life can be and there\’s so much to appreciate and so why should\’nt we appreciate it together, It was\’nt your typical proposal but him welcoming me into his love, into his world after myself facing so much pain was the best gift of his love from him to myself. God brings people in to our lives for a reason and my sweet and loving fiance was brought to me and we bless each other with our presence everyday.

Anjanette Hatchett (Grand Rapids, Michigan)

I’ve been wanting another cat for awhile and my now fiance, Gerald had been telling me for weeks that he had seen a white kitten in our backyard that he had befriended.

On Sunday night, September 28th, Gerald was out in our backyard while I was oblivious and inside cooking dinner when he came inside and told me that the white kitten was in the yard. I hurried outside and tried to look through the darkness when I turned my head I saw 9 pumpkins that were carved out spelling MARRY ME (heart) G, all lit up with votive candles in them. I turned and Gerald was on one knee and asked me to marry him. Needless to say I said yes, but was sad that there was no white kitten even around.

Katie O’Looney (Santa Rosa, CA)