Regina Merrick – Real life Romance – Part 2 of 3

DIAMONDS AND PIZZA

Graduation

Romance on Wheels

My husband and I didn’t have what you would call a “normal” courtship. Oh, we started dating young – I was fifteen, he was eighteen. I was in high school, he was on his way to the local university.

And while the first couple of years seemed like every teen girl’s dream, the kicker came that second summer, when dear hubby decided he wasn’t sure how he felt, and we broke up. OK, so I still roll my eyes when I even THINK about that, but he was sincere. Trouble was, in the meantime, my parents received a call into volunteer missions. I thought, “OK, we’ll be gone a couple of weeks in the summer, then we’ll come home and I’ll resume my life, such as it was.

Turned out, that fall, my family moved out of state to fulfill that call to missions at a church campground in Indiana—but not before I had a bulky class ring on my finger. I was devastated and elated all at the same time. Here I finally had a boyfriend, one who cared enough to make a commitment even though I was moving 250 miles away, and I was moving? Honestly.

So we “went steady” long-distance. He called, he wrote letters (such wonderful letters!), he came up for visits, usually bringing one or the other of my grandparents with him (you know they loved HIM!), and by the time we had gone on this way for a little over a year, in my senior year of high school, things had gotten serious.

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you the date or time, but one evening on the way home from a date, he asked me to marry him. It wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t one of those down-on-one-knee mind-blowing proposals, but just a humble declaration of his love and commitment.

We told my parents together, a little while later, but I didn’t get my ring then. I wasn’t sure just when I would get it, but we had decided to wait on the wedding until he graduated from college. I was thinking probably the next Christmas.

That next spring, on my 18^th birthday, he was coming for a visit—without the grandparents, this time. It was late, and I figured we’d just hang around the house when he got there, but he insisted we go out, just the two of us. I didn’t argue. We went to one of our favorite places, Pizza Hut. I know, romantic, huh? J Usually we’d go, order a large pizza, I would eat two pieces and he’d eat the rest.

When we came out of the restaurant, He opened the door for me to get in the car, I scooted over to the middle (don’t try this at home, kids—there were no seatbelt laws then!), then he went around and got in on the driver’s side. He leaned across me to get something out of the glove box. I didn’t think anything of it, since he’d traveled there that evening. I thought he probably wanted to give me my birthday present before we got back home. Maybe it was in the small compartment?

It was. He pulled out a small velvet pouch. In that pouch was a tiny velvet box. Inside the box was a diamond solitaire engagement ring. There in the parking lot of Pizza Hut, he once again asked me to marry him. I was floored.

Needless to say, I spent the next several months staring at that ring, noting that the facets caught the light especially well at church, in that particular lighting. I never took it off.

In fact, it has seldom been off my finger since that night in 1982.

My mother-in-law told me that he had bought the ring a few weeks before my birthday, and she would catch him, box in hand, just staring at it, noting for himself how the light caught the diamond’s brilliance.

And that’s the story of my engagement. So how did we plan a Kentucky wedding from Indiana, 250 miles away, with my parents planning yet another move? This time, to Wyoming? Stay tuned…

Come back June 18th for the final installment of Todd & Regina’s happily-ever-after. Remember to leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of White Roses.