Kelly Gets Engaged

Paul Morrone |

Recently our daughter Kelly got engaged to her now fiancé Dave. Cathy and I are so happy for them as they begin their journey through life together. Dave was a gentleman and in a very traditional manner asked my permission for our daughter's hand in marriage. That is a day that I will always remember and Dave will never forget it either. Certainly he was nervous and I was not totally surprised when he asked me. Of course I gave him my blessing and said "yes" and we hugged and I will admit I shed a tear. What then happened is what I was not at all prepared for. He wanted me to keep it a secret from Cathy...for almost 4 months! Yes, 4 months.

After I took my jaw and put it back in place the obvious question to me was "Why can't I tell Cathy?" Again remember he wanted me to keep this secret for 4 months from a woman that I have no secrets with. I tell her everything and this was a biggie. My first thought was he was under the impression that she could not keep the secret and would spoil the surprise even though I knew she would never do that. What Dave really wanted was for Cathy to be as surprised as Kelly. More importantly, he wanted Kelly to be the one to tell Cathy. I thought that was sweet. I did beg him to allow me to tell Cathy, but he held his ground. Now during this secretive 4-month period was Paul's wedding and dear friends of ours (Rock and Anita) had their son get married as well. Point being, there was allot of wedding talk in the house and the question did come up regularly about when would it be Kelly's turn? Numerous times Cathy mentioned that we would know about Kelly because she knew Dave was very traditional and would come and ask my permission. I was very evasive and did tell some little white lies. Maybe I did not tell lies but was guilty of withholding the truth. It was driving me crazy.

In addition to all the wedding talk we celebrated our 30th anniversary by going to Italy. How was I going to keep this secret in Italy? Well, time to confess...I broke down and in a very weak moment with the odds stacked against me I blurted out the big secret to Cathy. We were waiting for the limo to pick us up at our house to go to JFK. We were talking about one of Kelly's friends that is getting married and Cathy must have saw something in the expression on my face...that evasive not making eye contact thing. She looked at me and said "What do you know that you are not telling me?" Give me credit though because I did stay zipper lipped for 3 full months. Cathy was blown away at how I kept that information tucked away from her. 

The entire limo ride to JFK was answering the gamut of questions. Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? It made for interesting conversation throughout our Italian excursion. Dave finally asked Kelly, Kelly said yes, Kelly was totally surprised, Kelly called Cathy, they both cried...as did I, again.

Time to plan another wedding!

Until the next Tom's take…