An amazing, yet true tale…
This story begins with two people being matched on a website that was specifically designed to foster interracial relationships. She, being a gorgeous black woman of African and Caribbean descent from a small Caribbean island… And I, being a nerdy white guy of German and Irish descent from south central Pennsylvania had nearly zero chance of ever meeting had it not been for dating websites like AfroRomance! She was in Maryland visiting friends and family while on a six month travel visa to the US and I had just recently gotten out of a difficult and somewhat destructive relationship… But, fate was in our favor on that Valentine’s Day in 2009 when the algorithm pointed us in each other’s direction!
Over the course of a few weeks, we communicated via the site’s internal email system. We exchanged personal email addresses, Yahoo Messenger account info and photos of each other and of our children. We realized very early on that we had a lot in common (as well as a lot not so much in common). On more than one occasion, we tried to coordinate actually meeting in person, but for one reason or another it just wasn’t meant to be. The week that she told me she was leaving to go back down to Dominica, I became depressed and anxious to see her once before she left the country… However, there was just no way I could make that happen. On the night before her flight left the country, she called me and we talked for several hours. During the course of that conversation, I said to her something to the effect of “I don’t know how or when, but somehow I know I am going to marry you!”
That would be the last time I spoke to her for several months. But, when we did start talking again, it was almost as if we had just spoken a day or two prior. And, that is how it would go for the next 6 years. We would talk with amazing ease, catch up on all current happenings in each other’s lives… Then life would get in the way and we wouldn’t be able to talk again for another few months. On and off, on and off, on and off again until one fateful morning in August of 2015. Unknown to me tropical storm Erika had passed over her island the night before dealing a large amount of damage in a short time. I had awaken from a dream of lush vegetation and fast flowing streams, but no people to be found… When I looked down at my phone, there was a message waiting for me from her telling me that she and her girls were safe.