The Proposal

On October 4th, 2016,  we celebrated Casey's birthday at Herban Fix. Being a "part-time" vegetarian, Casey loved the variety of choices available to her at this vegan restaurant. We shared a pan seared scallion pancake as an appetizer, and Casey had a grilled Eggplant dish. She loves eggplant. I tried the closest thing resembling meat on the menu, a seared pom pom mushroom steak. I had never heard of a pom pom mushroom before, but it was actually pretty good.

During the entire meal, I kept checking my phone waiting for a text message from my brother. Unbeknownst to Casey, I asked each of our immediate families for the help in making this birthday extremely special for Casey.

Prior to meeting Casey, I would not call myself an R&B / love songs enthusiast. Granted, I definitely had some songs I liked here and there, but if given the choice, I'd much rather listen to Outkast over Otis or Wu-Tang over Whitney. But that all seemed to change once I met, and subsequently fell in love with Casey. Love songs I had heard a thousand times before, suddenly took on a new meaning for me. I found myself identifying with and relating to the words of these songs like never before. One song that particularly struck me was Luther Vandross' "Never Too Much". Every time I heard it, I thought of Casey.

To help make this birthday extra special for Casey, and to help express the way I feel about her, I asked each of our respective brothers, sisters and parents to record a video of themselves singing along to "Never Too Much." I asked this the evening before Casey's birthday, and I was worried that I hadn't given everyone enough time to put a video together in time to show her the next day. But amazingly, everyone sent their respective videos within a few hours. I then sent the videos to my brother who combined them all into one beautiful mashup. But it took a while to edit it all together, so when I finally got the text from him letting me know the video was finished, I told the waitress, "CHECK PLEASE!!!!"  We then went home, and before heading to bed, I showed her the video:

She loved the video. She was ecstatic. She said, "I wanna see it again, I wanna see it again!!!" But I wanted her to see the next gift instead.

Again, unbeknownst to Casey, for the past few months I had been looking for THE ring. But this was easier said than done. We both have simple taste. We rarely wear, and frankly don't really own any fine jewelry. So I didn't have much of a frame of reference to pull from to figure out what style of ring she would love. Nevertheless, I searched high and low for THE ring. I visited the "big box" jewelry stores you see on commercials, visited a couple of privately owned boutiques, and, truth-be-told, even went to a couple pawn shops (including the one from the "trade-up" episode from the TV show, Atlanta). But nothing quite fit. That's when I decided to get a custom crafted ring. I found a wonderful jewelry designer, Beautiful Petra (one of the very few black-owned fine-jewelry makers in the country).  Casey once told me that she wasn't into diamonds; they're needlessly expensive and are often questionably sourced (conflict). So with pink as one of Casey's favorite colors, and my parents both having sapphires in their wedding rings, I decided on a pink sapphire as the center stone. Beautiful Petra designed a wonderful setting drawn from the infinity symbol. I felt this beautifully represented the endless love I feel for Casey, and the time I hope to spend with her. 

• Pink sapphire generates feelings of love, forgiveness, acceptance and release.
• This gentle stone provides strength in difficult situations. 
• This stone combines energies of the heart with a disciplined mind, creating strength in balance.
• Helps overcome shyness.
• Dissolves emotional blocks.
• Opens your life to love.
• Helps release the past and overcome past wounds.

So with this hard sought ring in my pocket, after showing her the birthday video, I got on one knee. I looked up at Casey, and told her that ever since we met, she has made me so incredibly happy, more than I have ever been in my life. I hoped to have the chance to make her happy for the rest of our lives. I opened the ring box and asked if she would give me the honor of being my wife. My eyes started to "sweat" a little bit when I said this, it must have been a little dusty in the room. Casey looked at me with the hugest smile I had ever seen. I blinked for a moment to clear the sweat from my eyes, opening them to find her sitting on my knee as she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me with all of her might. It was a wonderful embrace. It felt like heaven. But I was still waiting for her answer! I said, "Uh... are you going to give me an answer?!?!?" She laughed, and said, "I'm sorry, I'm sooooo happy!" And then finally....