Valentine's Day

TheSaturday Challenge: 1) Recall a memory of a Valentine's Day in your life. Is it the first love of your life? A special day with your lover, spouse or significant other? Do you have a picture of a Valentine's Day event, or a special Valentine that you received, to share?

Valentine’s was never a big deal in my family growing up. Dad would usually buy a couple heart shape boxes of candy, a larger one for Mom and a small one for me.  As an adult it has been equally low-key.

Instead, I’m thinking back to a fall day a few years ago. My husband, then my boyfriend, wanted some help taking pictures of a gravestone in a local cemetery that morning. As he had, had a camera that he claimed to have possessed for many years, but never learned how to use, I was not surprised at this request.

We drove to the cemetery, Oakwood, in the south part of Syracuse, and meandered through some of the lanes. It is a rather large cemetery with roads that twist and turn over the uneven ground and covers many acres, so it is not unusual to need to take a few miss turns before getting to the grave you want. We had often wandered this cemetery before; in fact our first date was on a tour of famous graves that the Friends of the Cemetery group had put on.

We got out and I started taking pictures of the stone that had a bit of unusual writing on it. Rich, however, was looking kind of puzzled or bemused at the backside of the stone. Assuming there was more writing there, I walked around to the back. Sure enough, there was. I started centering the stone in my viewfinder to get a clear shot. That’s when I noticed a bright golden glint near the top of the stone.

Lowering the camera to look closer, I realized that wedged into the carving near the top of the stone was a kind of ring. I recognized it immediately. It was a ring that crafter’s use in various projects, such as to create a halo on an angel. Little girls like to use them when playing dress-up as well. Puzzled, I looked over to Rich to see him bending down on one knee!

Yes, how many other genealogists can say that they were proposed to in a cemetery? The ring I had noticed was one Rich had gotten from some of my Mom’s over abundant craft supplies that she had been cleaning out lately. He had planted it there early that morning for me to discover on our “photography expedition”.