This incredible, inspirational story is in 3 parts, so don’t miss PART ONE.

Thanks again to The White Whales for more killer music.

Jenn:

I knew I had really intense feelings for him from the start based on the really short little meeting that I had with him with him in my dorm room and then my reaction to him possibly being interested in me.

It terrified me and I knew that it had to be feelings that were very close to love, if not love yet because of the strength and force of them.

Lucas and his girlfriend Jackie set up a double date so that Richard and I could have a chance to get to know each other. They un-subtly took off…awkward [laughs]. After that, I was just too busy staring at him and how cute he was [laughs].

So, we agreed to do a movie night. It’s January 26^th. January in Minnesota is really cold, and this was a late night movie that we were going to be doing, and I got the idea into my head that I wanted to take a walk.

I called him up before he was going to come over and I’m like, “Okay, so this kind of weird, and I don’t mind if you say no, but would you want to take a walk with me first before the movie?” And he told me later that that was when he fell in love with me because one of his favorite things to do was take walks at night.

It’s such a great time to think and it’s beautiful at night.

So there was this one place at the top of the park that was his place and he’d never brought anybody there, and he’d never even told anybody about it before. And he took me there because he wanted to share that spot with me.

And so then we get up to the top and then he turns me around to look at the view and everything and he’s just standing there with his arms around me and we’re just looking at the view together and he’s telling me about this place and how much it means to him and how important it was for him when he was at the college because he had a place to go where he felt safe.

So he was telling me about how he no longer needed that safe place because I was his safe place and how much it meant to him that he didn’t have to go someplace else anymore, that he could just be with me and be safe. That was unbelievably touching for me.

I didn’t realize how much I’d helped him, I guess, because all I could focus on was how much he had been helping me and how much he was healing me with his love. And then he turned me around and he pulled the ring out of his pocket. I think I might have knocked him over because I just jumped on him I was so excited and happy [laughs].

The way that he was healing me was…the love that he had for me was a level of unconditional love that I had never experienced before in my life. And, you know, everybody has that unconditional love from their family but this is totally different. This is a love of someone who doesn’t have to love you. They can choose to walk away from you anytime that they want.

And I was an idiot for a very good part of our relationship. I was terrified of his love for me and my love for him. And I admit I was trying to push him away because I was waiting for him to just walk away himself. And I didn’t want that to happen. So I was kind of trying to jeopardize the relationship but he loved me so much through all of that.

And it finally convinced me that he’s really not going anywhere. I can’t believe it. Someone really loves me. I’m really worth this kind of love.

He really, really went a long ways with healing me. Because we just fit together so well.