Hyrum proposed to me.
He took me up Iron Mountain on horseback around sunset to pop the question.
When we got to the top, he told me "nature was calling" (that was his "creative" way of getting privacy to get an engagement ring out of his saddlebag without me knowing), so I headed toward some rocks in a clearing to wait, but there was a skunk running around. Great, stuck between a skunk and a guy peeing.
Okay, pause the story while I go off on a different tangent.
Skunks seem to be almost magnetically attracted to our family, so it has become our family mascot. I know, weird. But if you think about it...
-When I met Hyrum, he was driving semi for Dick Simon, and the logo on their trucks is a skunk.
-When he proposed to me, a skunk crossed my path just before the proposal.
-Our indoor dogs (Miniature Pinschers) got sprayed by a skunk while outside doing their business, so that night became their first night of becoming outdoor dogs. They're still outdoors, though we will have to move them indoors when we move to snowy Idaho. It took FOREVER (and tons of baths in skunk-odor-removal liquid and various other concoctions) before we could bear to be around them.
-In the spring of 2008, a skunk became trapped in the raccoon trap right outside our front door (we'd been having problems with raccoons stealing our cat food by our door), thus trapping us in our apartment until Hyrum shot it, which only caused it to leak it's acutely pungent stink all over our porch. It still faintly reeks of skunk over a year later. Yeah, there's a post about it, but I don't have the time to find it to link you to it. Sorry.
-We pet the skunks at the Wild Animal Park in Bandon.
-The area in which we live was formerly referred to as "Skunk Hollow".
-The other night Hyrum spotted a skunk out by our big house, so we all watched helplessly as it decided to take up residence under the house (it had moved the covers that were over the foundation vents). A few day later, I was cleaning the cars outside when suddenly the dreaded stink of skunk filled my nostrils. It came and went, and even Hyrum smelled it up in the apartment. In perfect jinx fashion, the vile vermin had blown a stink bomb under our house...in the middle of the day...WITH our belongings inside that we planned to yard sale and/or pack for our move. It's been airing for days, and I'm crossing my fingers that there's hope on the horizon of the fumes clearing completely.
-I guess you could say that some, if not all, of our household can give off a pretty good impression of a skunk on occasion.
So, disgusting as they smell, could there be a more appropriate mascot for our family? I mean, it has to be at least AS interesting at the badger, which would be Daisha's family mascot if I could pick one for her.
So back to our proposal story...
Hyrum was expecting a huge moon to rise that night since the moon had been impossibly enormous the night before when it rose, so when the skunk had passed, and he had sneakily retrieved the token of his commitment from the saddle bag (which he had had in his possession for a year and a half waiting for me to be ready to marry him), he joined me at the clearing. We sat and chatted and cuddled. I was thinking it was getting a little dark and we should be heading back to camp, and Hyrum thinking "WHY THE HECK ISN'T THE DANG MOON RISING?!" Finally, he gave up on the moon, and since we were both sitting on the ground, he skipped the tradition of getting down on one knee and just pulled me on his lap instead and proceeded with the proposal.
When he started professing his love and spouting off promises to me, I realized what was happening. I had suspected he was going to pop the question when we got up there, but true to my nature, I doubted that anyone, let alone him (since I had emotionally abused him for over a year), would ever actually want to commit to me forever (and ever) when it boiled down to actually saying the 4 magic words.
Honestly, I don't remember a word Hyrum said. I don't know if he said "will you marry me" or "will you be mine for eternity" or any other coined question. My mind was a confusing buzz of a second guesses and a million questions: This is forever, am I ready to commit?...Is this truly the man I know I should be with for eternity?...Am I ready to be married?...Does he love me enough to stay with me forever and not repeat his parents' history?
On and on the questions and thoughts swirled through my head. Oh, I heard the words he was speaking; I just can't remember any of them anymore. I've always been afraid of marriage because of the prevalence of divorce, and he had scared me a couple of times with concerns he had toward marriage as a result of his parents' relationship that he was raised around. I knew I was supposed to marry him; the Holy Ghost had made that clear to me. I simply remained terrified of abandonment and worried that he, or anyone for that matter, would find it difficult to remain in love with me forever. Thankfully, in my opinion, I had put Hyrum through the ringer during our year-and-a-half of dating, so I had some measure of confidence that if he could/would stick with me through all the emotional torture my on again/off again commitment gave him, he would stick with me forever.
I'm kicking myself for not writing down his promises!!! I do know he promised to love me forever and be a good husband and father, and I'm holding him to it. So far, he's been good for his word.
Obviously, I ended up saying yes to him, and it felt so right that it took my worries away. We got back on our horses (in the still-moonless night) and headed back for camp. It was too dark to see anything when we got in the trees, but luckily, the horses knew how to find camp so we let them take us home and didn't have to worry about a wrong turn.
The end...of the proposal anyway. Sadly, all my pictures to document this momentus occasion aren't digital, and I don't have a scanner (mine is broken), so this post will remain pictureless until...?
