It happened at a fast food restaurant. The proposal that was not a proposal. I was pregnant. I’m pro choice. I chose. My boyfriend said, "I guess we’re getting married." There was no bended knee, no satin-lined ring box, no upturned, expectant face waiting for an answer. We are not unwed parents kind of people; our parents are not unwed grandparents kind of people. And then there’s my daddy’s shotgun, the one that would be drawn one way or the other – playfully at the wedding, or seriously along a dark stretch of road. I was eighteen, a college student. He was twenty-seven, a late bloomer, and a recent college graduate.

We were married in the living room of my childhood home, the ceremony officiated by a family friend who had become a notary of the peace just for that occasion. He flubbed his lines so badly that it took some of the attention off our own discomfort.

The early years were, at times, difficult. I was outgoing and flamboyantly generous with family and friends. I was also somewhat of an emotional bully with a callous sense of humor. He was more easy going, but reserved and sometimes stingy with affection or praise. One child became two. We grew up and, happily, grew together rather than apart. I never regretted my choices, which were lucky accidents, not judicious decisions. Calling them choices indicates a level of thoughtfulness, suggesting our happiness was at least partially earned. That was not the case.

I envied my friends when they became engaged, and described how it went down, the proposal. By comparison, our own story seemed sordid. Fryer grease in the air, my mouth sour with lingering morning sickness. It wasn’t the ring or the lavish wedding I envied, or even the actual romance of the proposal moment, it was the feeling of discovery, the dawning realization -- either slow or sudden: This is the one I will marry.

I almost lost him once, about ten years ago, when within twenty four hours a cough and minor chest pain exploded into drug resistant bacterial pneumonia. With chest tubes, increasingly powerful antibiotics, a thoracotomy, four days in ICU. Then blood clots and deep vein thrombosis. Through it all, I refused to take in the seriousness of the situation. Because, you know, he’s always been a bit of a hypochondriac, and there’s no way he could die from that.

Once home from the hospital, he faced another health crisis. He had always been an active man, with an unfailing body that effortlessly did his bidding. This was his first face to face meeting with death, who had heretofore been a fictional character, unbelievable, now entirely believable. Inevitable, really. Now, his brain, the one organ that hadn’t failed him, had turned against him. He couldn’t sleep, and he cried easily, which he found embarrassing and which saddened him enough to make him cry. The doctor prescribed Ativan, and it helped a little.

One morning, the alarm went off. I silenced it. It had been a rough night. His stillness alerting me to his internal restlessness, his silence keeping me awake. With a sigh, I pushed aside the covers and sat up, preparing myself for the day ahead. He reached over, grabbed my arm and said, with a catch in his voice, "Stay. Please?" And I felt it, that dawning realization. After fifteen years of marriage and two children, this was it. My proposal. On bended knee, the ring box, the expectant face. Those two words: stay, please. I laid back down, pulled his head to my chest, hugged him tightly, and I said, "Yes."