My wife and I had been dating about a year, shacked up together about half that. I had the ring and had the proposal all laid out(More on that later) She gets a call from a friend of hers and is crying when whe gets off the phone. This young daughter(less than 5) of a friend of my wife had just died from a many year battle with cancer. My wife was very close to the kid, spent several years as a sort of surrogate mom, going to hospital for chemo and what not with the little girl, it was almost like her owne kid. My wife was pretty over wrought by this, inconsolable even. She is crying, saying I need to do something, so I go get the ring, kneel down and propose. She was so suprised she stopped crying and said, "You really are magic." We got married a few weeks later.

I had planned to take her out for chinese food and do the will you marry me fortune cookie, but it worked out okay.