Five years ago today: "The Proposal Stunt"

It was at 3 p.m. on November 20th, 2001 that I did this... thing. Readers of TheForce.net went to the site that afternoon to check out the latest news on the Star Wars Episode II front. Instead they got a cryptic headline at the very top of the page titled "Lisa McBrayer, Please Click Here" with the sub-heading "Your boyfriend has something he'd like to say to you ...". When they clicked on it, there was a passage of scripture from 1st Corinthians, followed by something of a "poem" from Yours Truly. And then below that, this graphic:

Here's the link to the original article, although the image itself went missing when TheForce.net site got upgraded a few years ago. But the text is still there if you want to check it out.

The thing that still amazes me about it is how fast Lisa said "yes": I was down on one knee by the point she read that on the screen (and I was wearing the same outfit as in the pic) and she said "yes" less than a second after I asked her.

There was much more to it than what everyone else saw that day though. When she came into my apartment I had candles lit all over the place, and I sat her down on my sofa and read to her the part from Ephesians about husband and wives serving the Lord together. Then I removed her boots and socks and washed her feet with a basin of water I had hidden under the chair nearby. It was while drying her off that I told her that "I've got something to tell you, but I'm not good at making speeches so you'll have to read this..."

This thing had been six months in the works, since like May of that year. The original plan was for me to do it in either a Jedi costume or a set of Stormtrooper armor (thus being her "Knight in shining armor") but I couldn't secure either for it. In the end, it was just plain ol' me proudly wearing a sweatshirt from my college, with a lightsaber and the engagement ring. Then we went out to celebrate, meeting my sister at the Cracker Barrel in Asheville for dinner. After that we got back to the apartment and soon headed off for the three-hour drive to my parents' house to spend Thanksgiving together. This was the same day that the soundtrack for The Fellowship of the Ring came out, and I'd bought two copies (including one for her) about 8 that morning at Wal-Mart but I saved listening to it until Lisa and I could do it together. We put it in the car's CD player just as we were hitting I-40 heading east.

It was one of those days where you can't help but remember every tiny detail, but I won't bother sharing all of them. It's just that I can't believe it's been five years already. Some people thought I was crazy to do it like this. But I wound up doing it for two reasons: one, to make it extra-special and memorable for both Lisa and me... to make it something neat to tell our children and grand-children someday. And second, a reason that definitely wasn't in mind when I first conceived it: this was coming just two months after 9/11. It was a time when we all needed something to laugh at and cheer us up and affirm that in spite of the worst of tragedies, we still have to go on... because in the end, that's how we really win. Someone even sent me a nice e-mail in the days following the proposal and said this was a really uplifting thing that I'd done. If just one other person out there got a laugh and some hope out of it, then it was well worth doing.

Anyway, that was five years ago today, and for me it really is something worth commemorating on this blog. It was definitely, bar-none, one of the bigger stunts that I've done so far in my life...

...but the biggest is yet to come.

It's waiting, boys and girls: sitting on my hard drive for the right moment to be set loose. It's coming to this blog, and perhaps sooner rather than later.

Be afraid :-)

(BTW, special thanks to a lot of good people who in whatever way helped make that day five years ago that much more fun, especially Chad, "Weird" Ed, Josh, Deborah, Maggi and Helen, and "lowbridge"!)