All the details you’ve been waiting for…
“…and the bridegroom who marries in June gets a sweetheart for a wife.”
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
It was the weekend John Ben and Esther flew to Seattle for John Ben’s brother’s October wedding when John Ben took possession of a family ring. His grandmother was going to bequeath him her ring but as he was preparing to ask Esther to marry him, she wasn’t ready to part with it. John Ben’s mother decided to give him her ring and keep the wedding band part of the set until her mother was ready to pass down her ring. Denise and Eddy’s story of their own romance brought out the beauty of a bride feeling valued and the importance of a relationship built of faith and love for God. John Ben told his mom that he wanted to follow in the traditions of the family she and Eddy raised him. The ring symbolized all of that.
Esther had invited Mike to come out to the college for a public lecture a few weekends later, but those plans fell through. Esther’s disappointment in Mike’s not coming didn’t make sense to me until the confided that she suspected John Ben wanted to ask Mike’s permission to marry her in person. They had been making plans for graduate school together which make Esther hope a proposal was imminent.
On the Saturday before they left for Christmas vacation, John Ben started a traditional nine-day novena called “The Surrender Novena” and timed it to be finished on the Monday after they returned home for Christmas. It included a prayer for every day, and then a repeated refrain that went, “Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything.” The couple who gave John Ben and Esther this novena, beloved guests to the Thomas Aquinas college who were known for their banana bread and advice, told them to pray it before making any big decisions.
Esther was suspicious when John Ben started the novena because every time they would talk about their future together, he would say, “Oh and we have to do the novena tonight.” All year long in their classes they have made the same connections in their reading and seminar discussions to the point of having a running joke that they share just the one brain cell. It was hard for John Ben to fool her, but he never told her what big decision the novena was for. There were a lot of big decisions in their lives with all the applications to graduate school and fellowship papers to write.
Esther miscounted the days of the novena and determined that it ended on a Tuesday and pondered what John Ben had planned. She shared her dreams with her roommate as she was packing for the trip home, “I think John Ben is going to propose on Tuesday.”
Her roommate said, “How can you be sure?”
Esther said, “I just have a gut feeling.”
Esther and John Ben flew home on Saturday, December 17, 2022. I knew that he and Mike were going to have dinner together on Sunday because Mike had consulted me about whether we had any plans for that evening. I put the guys’ dinner date on the calendar with a heart. When Esther told me that she would be gone all Sunday afternoon and evening for a ladies’ Advent retreat with John Ben’s mother, sister, and his brother’s wife, I didn’t tell her that I knew what John Ben would be doing while she was busy.
Mike and John Ben went out to eat on Sunday evening at Pappadeaux. John Ben later told me that it was the easiest time he ever had talking to Mike. They spoke of responsibility, working out your salvation with fear and trembling, and other things. Mike eventually said, “Yes.”
Mike told me that night what I had assumed. John Ben was going to propose to Esther soon. We didn’t know if it would be Monday or if he would wait until his family’s Christmas party on Friday. We had originally said that it would be better for us to leave our kids at home but started debating on whether it would be more fun if Esther was surrounded by her family for the big event.
Esther was up at night debating similar ideas. She had recounted the days and realized that the novena ended on Monday instead of Tuesday, but she had no idea that John Ben had met with her dad and was certain that the proposal would have to take place later that week.
John Ben had made plans with Esther to attend Adoration at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Monday morning and have a nice breakfast afterwards. To save money, Esther wanted to eat at home, but John Ben insisted that they make reservations at Yolk. Esther wondered if he had made his Monday plans before considering the timing of his meeting with Mike and wondered whether John Ben would consider asking her without her father’s permission. It seemed so unlikely that she again discounted that possibility until the end of the service when they did the novena. When John Ben held the phone with the novena pulled up on it, his hand trembled so much, the phone shook.
All thoughts left her mind as they walked out of the church. The Velcro straps on her sandals had been pulled way too tight. They were downright uncomfortable by the end of the novena, and Esther’s first thought as she walked out the doors was for her feet. She bent down to loosen the straps.
John Ben had the ring in his pocket without a box since it was an heirloom. When Esther bent over to fuss with her shoe, he thought, “This is it!” He had been debating whether to say, “Will you marry me?” or “Would you marry me?” but he was so full of adrenaline that all he remembers is getting on his knees and saying, “Esther.” He asked her to marry him, and she said, “Yes” three or four times before it sunk in what was happening.
Esther heard him call her name and turned around to find him on one knee. At first, she didn’t understand what was happening, but then she realized he already had the ring in his hand. All she heard was, “Marry me, please.” By the time he said, “Please,” she already had put the ring on her finger, and she told him, “Yes!” But he was still on the ground still in the process of proposing.
She said, “Yes. Yes. Yes!” She kissed him on the top of his head, and he stood and gave her a great big hug.
They asked the next person coming out of the church to take a picture of them and then they walked back to the car. They couldn’t stop laughing from happiness every time they looked at each other.
When Esther called us, Mike was asleep, and I was lying in bed reading a book on my phone. Mike answered, and I listened to the exuberant joy in her voice as Esther announced, “John Ben proposed to me!”
I told Mike, “Tell her I said congratulations too!”
It was a two-second call that make me feel very happy for my daughter.
They went out to Yolk for breakfast where they ate eggs benedict and talked and laughed and that was that.
It was great fun for me when Esther showed up with rings on her fingers. Our wedding/engagement rings are matching with three round diamonds. Mine was a replacement for the original which I lost shortly before my tenth wedding anniversary. The three diamonds represented to me “past, present, future,” “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” and my three children at the time, “Esther, Sophia, and Basil.” When John Ben and Esther went to the mall to get the ring resized, John Ben bought Esther an emerald ring and necklace set. Her emerald ring looked exactly like the emerald ring Mike bought me when we first started dating. My emerald ring broke this Christmas when I was manhandling the ladder to put up the Christmas tree, and Mike replaced it with a new emerald ring with tiny diamonds. My rings mean so much to me. Every time I look at my new emerald ring, I think, “I am worthy. My husband loves me.”
Mom always loved to quote Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blonds and sing, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” She prayed every night for all my children’s spouses. I think she would have loved John Ben.
The wedding date in June gives Esther and John Ben enough time to settle into their new life as graduate students at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio and start working at their summer jobs. We ordered a wedding dress, put the deposit down on the reception hall, and have met with a florist. Esther and John Ben have met with their priest in California for marriage counseling. Everything is moving right along.
Mike and I had a great time at the Christmas party with John Ben’s family, and our Christmas party for 2022 included both John Ben and his parents who are lovely people. God is so good.
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