As they occur, we might not realize that seemingly trivial events could end up shaping a lifetime.
The following is a story about finding what you need most when you aren’t looking.

Joshua Strickland, an Ypsilanti native living near Depot Town, began his day on July 12th, 2022 like any other. Settling down after the work day, Josh cooked a dish of goulash. With great culinary finesse, Josh noticed too late that he had left too big of a piece of onion in his dish. As this fortuitous chunk became lodged in his esophagus, Josh fully realized his gratitude that he was not a career chef.

As the aforementioned onion chunk proved reluctant to leave Josh’s esophagus, he drove to the St. Joe’s emergency room to get a fateful X-ray.

While admitted, he was romantically blasted with radiation by a traveling X-ray technologist from Saginaw, Jenny Hua. Her contract with St. Joes would end in the upcoming weeks.

Though in discomfort, Josh was nonetheless happy because he would manage to line up a first date with the particularly cute X-ray technologist at Pinball Pete’s nearby in Ann Arbor.
In the weeks after, Josh and Jenny would drive a hundred miles to see each other over the weekends or on any night they had a few hours.

In late summer of 2022, on a visit to Depot Town, Josh and Jenny walked through this alleyway.
As they walked under the glow of the string lights above, Josh thought that if this was how he spent the rest of his life, he’d be a very lucky man.

Over 2 years later, Josh remembered exactly now he felt that evening in Ypsilanti under these lights.
And over 2 years later, he felt just the same.
So on November 27th, 2024, Josh took Jenny back to this lit up alleyway to ask the most important question of his life... “Will you marry me?”