I had been dating Travis for a few years already, we had travelled and worked in Dubai for a bit, moved from Durban to Cape Town and just started to find our feet. For my 21st birthday he had given me a key (weird - people get keys from their parents, surely). This key had been a 'normal' key which he obviously got a jeweller to doctor, by gold plating, adding a heart and engraving our nicknames into it. When he gave this key to me he told me to always keep it with me. I thought 'gee this is a big key to just carry around!'
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| The original key |
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| The key I got for my 21st |
Anyway time went by, life went on and we all went on holiday! Over that Christmas holiday my family and Travis's family spent some time together in a house in a Game Reserve.
I didn't know it at the time but Travis was using this 'family time' to ask my parents if he could marry me. I think we should get him to tell us that story sometime!
A couple more months went by and on one random day I was having an extremely bad time. I had decided the world was against me and there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I was visiting Travis and off-loading my woes onto him, when he got really excited and said he had something to show me.
He came out with an old 'treasure chest' looking box which was truly magnificent, but it was locked! The lock was dated 1897, which is all great and everything, but I could not get into the box!
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| The box that was locked |
Well I was now even more frustrated as Travis wouldn't open the box for me and just kept on saying think about it.
Yes you guessed it - I finally clicked and got the key he gave me for my 21st birthday the previous year, and it opened the box. Inside the box was the most beautiful custom made ring he had designed for me and he asked me to marry him.
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