It wasn’t until her partner, Marj Buerger, asked her to close her eyes that Krysta Fitzgerald put two and two together.
The couple had been hanging out in their cabin at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, waiting for Jasper Pride’s Wicked White Winter party to start, when Buerger grabbed her partner and they started to dance.
As M83’s Wait drifted from the speakers, Buerger started sweetly whispering in Fitzgerald’s ear, telling her how much she loved her, how happy she made her, and how they should spend the rest of their lives together.
“She was saying all these nice things and I was thinking how sweet she was. And in the back of my mind I was thinking it almost sounds like what you would say when you’re proclaiming your love for the rest of your life. But I didn’t clue in,” Fitzgerald remembered.
“Then she asked me to close my eyes, and then I was like ‘oh my God.’ And then you’re transported to this weird headspace, and you just think ‘oh my God, oh my God.’
“I was shocked; I was speechless.”
According to Buerger, she had bought the ring months ago, and had been waiting for the perfect time to ask Fitzgerald to marry her. For Christmas, Fitzgerald had bought her a gift package for Jasper Pride, and in the back of her mind she thought it would be the perfect place to pop the question.
So, as soon as they arrived in Jasper on Thursday, Buerger’s mind was focused on the perfect engagement. She wanted to do it at the lake, so she could propose against a backdrop of crystal waters and stunning mountains.
The ring was hidden in the hotel safe, waiting for the stars to align. But, as wardrobe and weather changes kept foiling Buerger’s attempts to lure Fitzgerald to the lake, she found herself continuously retrieving the ring and ultimately returning it to the safe.
Fitzgerald recalled with a giggle how thoughtful Buerger had seemed about the safe, never letting her near it and always offering to get her things for her.
Saturday evening, as the party loomed ever closer, Buerger was sitting on the bed doing a crossword puzzle, when she realized that the time had come. It had started to rain and snow, and she knew there was no way she could get Fitzgerald outside to the lake.
She was nervous, but realized that she had to seize the moment or it was going to pass.
“So we were in the room, by the big picture window looking out over the lake and mountains [and] I just kind of grabbed her and we started dancing.
“That’s the moment when my heart just stuck, and I’m standing and I’m thinking ‘OK, am I really doing this?’ But once I started talking, everything just kind of went away. I wasn’t nervous: I was elated. All those words, that’s how I felt.”
For Buerger, that moment was a culmination of the long journey she and Fitzgerald have taken together.
This is the first time each of them has been in a serious relationship since coming out of the closet. Not that long ago both women were in long-term heterosexual marriages, and both have several kids.
They met in school, where both are attending their third year of social work degrees. According to Buerger, at first they were just friends, but there was an undeniable attraction between them, and they could only deny it for so long.
Things progressed, and last year they bought a house together. Over the last little while they have helped each other through some tough times, got to know each other’s children, and have begun to build a life together.
“It was the craziest, hardest couple of years of my life. And we got through it, and we came out,” Fitzgerald said.
A big reason they made it through, she said, was because of the wonderful and supportive friends they have, many of whom attended the Jasper Pride Weekend.
Fitzgerald said having them all there to celebrate with was one of the best things of all.
“One of the kind of neat things about same sex engagements during Jasper Pride is that it is such an environment of acceptance. It even kind of felt like there was that extra level of love and support, even though we didn’t know most of the people around us,” she said.
Buerger agreed, saying that she picked last weekend because she wanted to be able to celebrate the engagement in a fun and supportive atmosphere, and a pride celebration is just about the best place for that.
“When you talk about it as a gay celebration—my friends always call pride ‘gay Christmas’—everyone is so happy and already celebrating, why wouldn’t you pick it?”
The Fitzbuergers, as their friends call them, say they haven’t yet set a date for the wedding, but that they plan to return to Jasper Pride each year to celebrate the day they were engaged.
Trevor Nichols
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