Simply put, God told me so. I had been praying for months about what was I in this relationship for. Eventually I was led to see that Shaemekia was the one that I was to make my wife. I originally bought the engagement ring on the day before her birthday, March 23, 2006. I thought that a good birthday gift would have been to give her the ring then, but something told me that the time wasn't right and to do it in it's proper order. So I waited until I got a chance to talk with her mom and dad while we were in Burnt Corn during the summer for her family reunion.
On the drive back to Fort Worth, I kept my secret, and didn't tell her that I had talked to her folks to ask for their blessing. So on Tuesday night, July 25, 2006, I had a friend tell all of our close friends to meet at her house because she had an announcement to make. Once we all got there, I decided to show everyone the pictures from the family reunion. Immediately after the pictures finished I showed a short vidoe of me asking her to marry me, at teh same time I walked over to her, dropped down to one knee and presented her with the ring.
Proposal Video
It was July 25, 2006, and we had just come back from the Harris Family Reunion in Burnt Corn, AL. It was my last day of work for teh week, because I brought my little sister, Iteria, and my little cousin, Kortney, back with me to spend some time with them before school started. Demea really pulled the wool over my eyes this day. He and his close circle of friends, devised the idea to get us all in one central location at a certain time and keep me clueless.
How? An email came out from one of Demea's close friends, Sheneita "Tricey" McCall-Stoglin, stating that she needed us all to meet at her house that night, around 8:00 P.M. for a "big announcement". She had recently gotten married in March 2006, so I figured her and her husband were expecting. Coudn't tell me I didn't know what was going on. LOL. So I went through the entire day with the notion that she was going to announce she's pregnant, and then we would leave and go eat.
When we got home from work, Demea kept tryin gto get me out of the house. I had planeed to go grocery shopping for the kids; since I would be home with them for the rest of the week. As usual I was being lazy and wanted him to go with me adn he was constantly thinking of reasons to get me out of the house. I should have started suspecting something then, but I figured, I knew what the announcement was and that was that.
The kids and I returned from grocery shopping and then we left to go Tricey's. We were the first to arrive, and then slowly but surely, the gang started straggling into the house. Soon, everyone was there, with the exception of Tricey's husband T. Shalonda Godfrey, another one of Demea's close friends, came with a video camera, claiming she was going to show us some of her daughter's, Akira, latest dance moves. Demea brought his camera too, but I figured he was just going to show all the funny candid moments of the family we had captured during the family reunion, while we were waiting for T.
We all began looking a tthe pictures, and then it all Happened! At the very end, Demea was on the camera, saying a whole bunch of nonsense. At first I figured he was just making a funny video to talk about the amazing time he had in Burnt Conr. But then a sense of seriousness struck the room, and I realized this NUT was about to ask the big question in front of EVERYONE. And it came; he put the ring box up to the camera and asked me if I would marry him. In the brief seconds of me looking away to tell my sister something, Demea had walked over to me, gotten down on one knee to propose, and presented the ring to me. My response, on that should be sent into America's Funniest Home Videos, was "I'm going to BEAT you", followed by a "YES!".
Answer Video