The Day We Met - From His Perspective

Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV / Part V

A guest post from my very favorite person.

I have always enjoyed reading this blog but never more so than lately. The story of how I met my wife is my favorite story. Normally though, when it is told we are together. So as I read the blog I am compelled to write a little of the story from my perspective.

I was 25, just a few years out of college, unwilling to commit in any relationship and a career that was off track. I called a good friend of mine who owned a Morgen 36’ (sailboat) in Miami and asked him “Where do you want your boat this winter?” I did not expect his immediate response… “Belize!” I immediately quit my job and sublet my apartment. Seven days later I was on a plane to Miami studying weather patterns for the Western Caribbean. Within two weeks I was throwing my dock lines. For the next seven and a half months I sailed the waterways of Belize, Guatemala and Honduras. As I entered the Rio Dulce in Guatemala for the third and final time before sailing back to Miami, I began to resign myself to loneliness. It took 25 years, and 8 months at sea, but I finally embraced the loneliness that had defined me for so long.

Days later, I was sitting in my favorite restaurant. The power in town was turned off to save energy so I was reading Tom Clancy by flashlight when she walked in. I knew right away that this was going to be one of those moments I would spend the rest of my life wondering about. A boat driver tried desperately to find gas to take her to an orphanage down-river. Another older sailor offered her a beer but she declined. Before long every other person in the restaurant had tried to intervene in some way. A debate ensued over the distance between Mario’s Marina and the orphanage she needed to get to. If I entered the conversation unsolicited I would squander any chance of her trusting me. Finally the proprietor, my friend Holly, asked me that fateful question I had been dying for someone to ask me. “Dave, how far is the orphanage from Mario’s Marina?” If I told the truth and said that it was not too far away she would have passed right through my life, never to be seen again. I waited for a few seconds, knowing that I did not want to sound too desperate… then calmly I said, “It’s far, really far.” Having not said a single word during the entire ordeal up to this point, I had somehow elevated myself to the “All knowing one” in the bar. I had been given the last word, and the debate was over. She would not be making it to the orphanage that night.

Over the days and weeks that followed, I fell deeply in love with her.

How cute is he?? You can read the finale to my side of the story in the post below.