Valentine's Day and the Week that Followed 1993

Do you feel a little like saying..."Hey, there...wait a second!" when the stores start putting up Valentine displays on DECEMBER 26?  I do.  I mean, come ON folks...let me at least get the wrapping paper to the curb before I have to deal with Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day - which surprisingly has never really worked out for me...I traditionally have wacko stories about how this day has gone hysterically south.  EXCEPT for Valentine's Day 1993.

Yep...17 years ago.  That was the LAST romantic Valentine's Day.  

Want a re-cap?  Hold on...I need a tissue.

John was a cadet at West Point - I was struggling to find a teaching job and we were dating about 1000 miles apart.  Kentucky LOVES to get snow after Christmas and a storm had hit us - just blanketing the entire world in white fluff.  So pretty...but I was not feeling that Valentine Spirit.  And, as I was working at McAlpin's (a department store like Dillards)...who walked in?  My handsome cadet.  NO...he was not in uniform...this is not 

"An Officer and a Gentleman" people.

I squealed and leaped and acted "all giddy" and took off to go to dinner with my "super awesome boyfriend who flew in to surprise me"!!  What a guy.  Then he said, "Oh, my love - put on a dress - let's go out for a fireside dinner..."  

No...wait, those where the voices in my head.

He said, "Can you call your parents and ask them if we can come there?"  Umm...maybe you don't know my parents, buddy.  I don't have to CALL them...we are tight...I just show up!

And off we went...33 miles to my little corner of Kentucky and "ta-da" showed up to hang out with my Mom and Dad on Valentine's Day.  

Doesn't sound very romantic, does it?  Well, hold your little pink horses...

And the NEXT DAY...My Momma, Daddy, John and I stood in my Mom's extra teeny tiny kitchen talking when all of a sudden my Mom sends me on a ridiculous task.  I'm thinking..."Does she KNOW I am 23 most wonderful years old?"...and I slithered off - defeated to be exiled from the teeny tiny kitchen to run a child-like task for my Momma.

And when I returned, all 3 of them just turned and LOOKED at me.

It was awkward - I like attention and all - but this was one of those times when you say, "What???".

But, I didn't because they all started hugging me.  Oh, dear heavenly horseradish...WHAT?

As it turns out, John had asked my Momma to send me out and when she did, he turned to my parents and asked for my "hand" in marriage.  Do you think he was aware that when he did that he also asked for my yackity-yack mouth?  My always running around feet?  My overflowing eyes?  My "falls too hard" heart? My hands that serve to exhaustion?

No...I'm not sure he did.

Here's the hysterical part.  John asked my parents if he could marry me..and my Momma wrapped her arms around John and said, "YES!  I know you will take care of her like we would!" and my sweet Daddy...do you know what HE said??  He grinned at John and said, "Good Luck, you're gonna have your hands full...".

Huh?  GOOD LUCK? YOU'RE GONNA HAVE YOUR HANDS FULL??  Wait a second...

Oh, dear...Dad was going to blow my cover.  This was the guy who had been with me for 23 years and he KNEW me.  As I look back - I think the hot wings my Mom had cooking for John must have distracted him...because he acted like he didn't hear him really.  BUT, I am here as a witness that John heard it..because NOW...all of these years later...when I am being particularly cantankerous...John says, "good luck" just to see if I'M listening...and I glare at him.  I usually say something really clever like, 

"WELL, YOU WERE WARNED, BUDDY!"

One week later, February 21, 1993 John and I were attending a banquet at West Point appropriately coined "100th Night".  100 days before West Point graduation...100 days before they all became Lieutenants...100 days before the real world came in like a flood.

  

It was a special day and John had on his full dress gray uniform - I was wearing black velvet (ahem...size FOUR, thank you...) and we looked like two people ready to take on the world.  At the banquet there is assigned seating and while you don't always LOVE it, you deal with it and eat, listen to the speaker and then hang out with friends afterwards.  Tonight was weird...all of John's buddies were asking the cadets at our table to switch - John was acting weird - the "dates" were complaining that they couldn't hear the General who was speaking and I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.  I said, "Why do you guys care if you hear the speaker?  We have never cared before...".  They just smiled.  John, still acting weird...me - eating my Chicken cordon bleu (standard West Point banquet fare). And then, the speaker wrapped it up...(clap clap clap clap)...

And that General paused and said, "Well, I'm not sure I've ever done this before...but I want to know if CHRISTY WHITAKER is here tonight?"

o-h-d-e-a-r l-o-r-d-y-b-e-e

what????????????

And, just as if we had rehearsed it, I stood up and felt 25 feet tall....like a Queen on her Coronation Day.

And looked down

John was on one knee looking up at me.

And the general said, "Christy, John wants to know if you will marry him!"

The crowd of 2000 cadets and their dates ERUPTED into screaming and applause and table pounding (or was that my heart??) and chants of "SAY YES SAY YES SAY YES!!!!!"

In my head, all I saw was John, holding a ring and I put out my hand and whispered, "yes"...

(Let's stop here for an etiquette lesson...cadets in uniform CANNOT be involved in ANY PDA.  None...nada....don't even try it.  Hmmmm....this is a kink in the whole engagement plan....)

And then he stood up and I hugged him (was hugging in uniform allowed?....I don't think so...) and I LOOKED at him and gave him a quick peck on the lips hoping that he wasn't handed some crazy punishment (Dressing in "full dress" and walking the "area"...back and forth back and forth back and forth for HOURS with a heavy weapon...) and then the General BOOMED over the microphone..."DID SHE SAY 'YES'?"

And, I turned toward the podium and screamed...in a very unlady like way (Southern girls...cover your ears with your white gloves) 

"YES!!!!".

Again...crazy applause, screaming, table pounding and hugs from our friends who had wrangled their way to our table.

blur blur blur

And that, girls, was the best week after Valentine's Day of my WHOLE life.

Today, I'm sitting here in quite chilly Germany, fresh snow falling outside, my husband is deployed in the name of freedom, my kids are still snuggled up asleep and my heart is heavy with the upcoming move back to the United States of America.  Yes, I had to write the entire thing out because that country that you may or may not take for granted, well, I'm married to that country.  An Army Wife is married to not only her soldier, she is married to her country.  And when I said, "yes" to John, I said "yes" to the United States...which is probably why John has spent more Valentine's Day with HER than with me.

I love the United States.  I love you...her people.  I love the faces and the places and the amazing spaces that make the United States the greatest place on earth. And, I am okay with giving her my Valentine Days....most of them.

Happy Valentine's Day 2010, friends, and well...."good luck"...