How We Met
For the past 10 years, I have been a single mother to the most amazing little girl, Shyyra. I work full time and go to college full time in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree in accountancy. My daughter’s biological father has never been a part of her life and every now and then she would ask me when she would have a dad. Never an easy question to answer, I would tell her that God is working on someone very special to be her dad.
In order for me to juggle my busy schedule, I enrolled my daughter in an after school care program offered by her elementary school. For about a year, Shyyra would tell me fun stories about an after school care leader whom she nicknamed “Mr. Thor”. She was only able to see him during Spring break, fall break, and summer because he worked at a different school within the district. I met Jessie (AKA: Mr. Thor) once that year after dropping off Shyyra and I remember thinking how handsome and sweet he was. After that, I made it a point to dress especially nice whenever Shyyra was on school breaks just in case I ran into him again.
During the fall break of 2016, Shyyra told me that Jessie had been teasing her about bringing him a donut and she asked me if she could really bring him one. As I dropped her off the following morning Jessie walked over and jokingly asked Shyyra if she brought him a donut. The look on his face was priceless when she actually handed him one! Every morning after that, he made a beeline straight to us as I dropped Shyyra off just to say hi and chat for a minute. On one of the final days of fall break he asked if I would be interested in grabbing a coffee with him over the weekend. Doing my best to look cool and nonchalant with my response, I agreed. Then, naturally, once I got back to my car I began giggling like a school girl with excitement and called my aunt to tell her all about this amazing sweet guy.
When I picked up Shyyra that evening I had decided not to tell her about the coffee date with her favorite leader. As we ran a couple errands she piped up out of the blue and said wistfully, “I wish Mr. Jessie could be my dad….” I tried to hide my surprise because she had never said anything like that before. Who was this guy who captured my daughter’s heart?
Jessie and I spent several hours on our coffee date getting to know each other and finding out we had so much in common. Shyyra was elated when she found out later on that he and I had begun dating. After several fun dates, nerding out over superheroes, and getting to meet his family over Thanksgiving I knew I had found my best friend for life. During a fun trip to the mall on black Friday I asked Jessie if he wanted to be my boyfriend and he said YES!
how they asked
A year and a half later….
I got home early from my office and excitedly got dressed up for a “fancy-pants” double-date dinner in Coronado. Shyyra was at Jessie’s parent’s house for the day and I assumed that we would pick her up later on that night. I wanted to make the most of the day so I texted Jessie to see if we could get to Coronado early and wander around the different shops. I fully expected him to respond with an exuberant “Heck yes! I’m almost to your place now”. Instead, I received a short, “switching laundry” response. I was rather puzzled, but justified his text with the assumption that he probably just needed clean work shirts for the following day. Forty-five minutes later I was getting antsy and texted him again. This time he answered that he had a chiropractic appointment. Again, the response did not seem odd to me because he had been going for several weeks already.
When he showed up I was ready to run out the door and get the party started! But, Jessie had other ideas and instead suggested that we sit and relax for a bit. I figured he must have had a long day at work and so I sat down with him.
When we finally got to Coronado we enjoyed a cool walk to a beautiful green area that overlooked the water towards downtown San Diego. He stopped me and began talking about the beautiful skyline. Right when I was about to turn around and continue walking Shyyra appeared in front of us. My thought process went something like, “This little girl is so cute and looks a lot like….that’s Shyyra! She’s holding a tiny box! Oh my gosh, it’s happening now!”
Jessie turned to me and with a big grin said “I have a question for you, but first I need to ask Shyyra something.” And with that he dropped down on one knee in front of my daughter and opened a small box with a beautiful tiny gold cross and asked her permission to marry her mom. With tears streaming down her cheeks Shyyra nodded saying yes and then threw her arms around his neck.
I glanced around us and saw Jessie’s entire family along with several of our friends coming towards us with cameras and cellphones recording it all. My mind was spinning! How did he manage to do all of this without me suspecting a thing??? Then, he turned to me and on one knee asked me to marry him and I said YES!
