“A wicked generation seeks signs and wonders, but a foolish generation ignores signs and wonders.”

May Day of 2012, sitting in the grass with my best friend Olivia just before high school graduation, I informed her that I was ready to begin “start talking to boys” after an entirely self-perpetuated ban. A few hours later, as fate would have it, I met Michael. Standing on the front step of my house, unassuming in his baseball cap and jeans, he didn’t look like a divine delivery,  but something in me recognized him as such. 

Some May’s later, I turned 27, and the morning of July 16th, we would be married in the grassy fields of Tulmeadow Farm in Simsbury. We chose it because it was a mere ten minutes from my parent’s home where the afternoon’s celebrations would be, where we took our first drive together, and where we christened our ears with Taylor Swift’s Folklore one summer. And, perhaps it’s the Illinois blood running through my veins that renders me so content at the sight of a cornfield, but it is just one of my favorite places in the world. 

For my dad and I, the ride to Tulmeadow that morning wasn’t unique. I’ve worn white dresses a thousand times, had flowers in my hair a thousand more. His hand squeezing my knee as it always had on car rides, not needing to speak to know how each other felt. He himself had brought me here for ice cream on days this hot twenty years ago.

Once we arrived, I hopped down from his truck with excited, searching eyes, wondering where Mike would be, for I had told him he could pick anywhere that he liked. So, my dad and I walked hand in hand down the dirt path, and as we turned the first corner, we saw him up on the peak of the knoll, in a sacred patch of shade that would shelter us from the July sun. I couldn’t stop smiling, Michael stood firmly, accomplished as we approached.

I glanced upon the ground as I took my final step towards him. Right there, in the grass, was a four leaf clover. “Oh! A four leaf clover!” I said delighted, bending to pick it. Michael and my dad, knowing I had a penchant for meeting an abundance of four leaf clovers in my travels since childhood, burst into joyful hysterics, as they had just witnessed the magic of this themselves. But, as I plucked my little four-leafed friend, I saw a second four leaf clover growing right beside it. It was then that to me, the clamoring became quiet, and I was overcome with the deepest sense of calm, as if a strong but tender hand had been placed on my shoulder. Two beautiful, special little clovers that accumulated to one symbol from above saying you two are the match I made. We married right then.