Grace Abounds

Today while Graceland I were out for our morning walk, we met a cockapoo named Gracie. Frequently we call Graceland an abundance of nicknames, one of which is Gracie. My mom's schnoodle is also named Gracie and my grandmother (whose ring I'm now wearing!!) was named Grace as well. Clearly, I am surrounded.

Thanks to my post last night on Facebook about Alissia's proposal, I have received so many kind, loving, beautiful messages and a lot of "likes". A few people from my past, who I am connected with via Facebook but haven't talked to in Years have thrown in their support, even a few whose religious beliefs don't really mesh well with same sex relationships. Inwardly (and not outwardly on my blog) I cheer any time that I see love and respect for people trump our perceived differences. I am continually amazed by the awesomeness of the people that the Universe has brought through my life in its various ways.

I wasn't blogging back when I proposed to Alissia, so for those who don't know that story, I'll recap here before I tell of her proposal to me last night.



In Chicago we have a beautiful botanical garden. It's huge and has different areas for all kinds of geographical areas. My favorite, though, is the Japanese garden. In addition to all of the plants (miniture and huge bonsai trees!!) they have a few rock gardens which are raked into patterns to promote inner peace, meditation and a sanctuary of beauty.

On the day that I took Alissia, we had a staff member explaining the various components of the garden. It was an amazingly beautiful and spiritual description and then, just as she was wrapping up her explanation another staff member came and let her know that due to the cold weather, they were being taken off duty early. I wish I could say that I planned this out with the staff ahead of time, but it was just the Universe having my back. Alone in a garden at the top of a hill, I asked Alissia to marry me with her grandmother's ring. She cried and said yes. We were officially engaged but she still planned to propose to me and give me my grandmother's ring... at some undisclosed point in the future.

 Fast forward to last night. It was an ordinary day. We didn't have any plans. In fact, I was babysitting from 3-8, planning to take a bus home and just barely see Alissia before she went to sleep since she gets up at 4am. She sent me a text message saying that Graceland wanted to go out so she was outside. I was in the middle of getting 3 kids to clean up before bed time. I thought it was odd that she was texting me about taking the dog for a walk, but I didn't give it a whole lot of thought. At 8, I went straight to the bus, and was on my way home when I got a follow up message asking if I was ever coming outside.

It was then that I realized that she had decided to pick me up from work and was outside the house I babysat for. I got off the bus and let her come get me about a mile down the road, apologizing profusely for being dense enough to miss her nice surprise. I still didn't know that this had anything to do with rings and proposals. I thought she just wanted to see me for an extra 20 minutes or so. It was still pretty cool and I felt bad for messing it up.

When we got out of the car I noticed that she was wearing a t-shirt with Cookie Monster on it. As I've talked about in several of my posts, lately we've been talking a lot about child like joy and how things needn't always be so serious. The shirt got hauled out during one of our discussions about this and I now associate it very strongly with innocence and play. Alissia suggested that we take Graceland to the park and just run around and play a little bit.

So it was there at the park, while playing on swings and running around with our dog that Alissia asked me to be "forever young" (yes, insert a Rod Stewart earworm here) with her and pulled out my grandmother's ring. I laughed and said yes. Obviously, a second proposal is more of a formality, since a couple is already engaged but I really love how this second set of circumstances fits the dynamic of our relationship. Ours is not a flashy billboard or football game proposal kind of love. We don't need panoramic views of the city, expensive dinner or daredevil adventure... just to laugh, play and love each other, by the grace of God, forever. :)