Well, I'd like to think we have a pretty good "how we met and fell in love" story. Here's how it happened:

When I moved to Portland, I started attending church in a unit specifically for the deaf where everything is signed. It was wonderful (and still is) but there weren't any other young adults to hang out with. The branch president remembered that there was a church unit for singles near my apartment which was chock full of people in my same age and stage in life. As such, they had many, many more social activities which I could attend - but I never heard about the activities since I wasn't there for church. He called up the bishop and asked for someone to be assigned to keep me in the loop. I already had some friends there from my internship the year before, including one boy who knew ASL and wanted to be an interpreter. The bishop assigned him and his buddy Stamps to make sure I knew what social events were happening, mostly through email or using Instant Messenger.

One day in October, shortly after I came back from my first vacation in Hawaii, my friend was on IM and introduced me to Stamps. I'd just returned from my first trip to Hawaii, which sparked a conversation since Stamps had lived there for a few years. I mentioned that I wanted to go someplace and let my dog, Mikey, run around and get some exercise. Coincidentally, his dog, Max, also needed some exercise and he knew a friend with a big field where we could let the dogs run. So, after work that night, we all went out to Forest Grove, Oregon. The dogs had a fine time but didn't get to run very long before it got dark.

The following week or so, Stamps told me about a number of Halloween parties being held by various members in the Singles ward. I consented to go to the first one with him, half-expecting that when we got there, he'd go off and talk to his friends. But that isn't what happened. He stayed near me - asking me how to sign various words. With his extremely limited sign language skills, he did his best to introduce me to people and make me feel included. This behavior continued through the other parties we attended that week. I'll admit I was impressed by that, but didn't think that it was any indication of any romantic interest in me.

By now, it was November 2002. I started noticing that Stamps was really having a presence in my life. We'd go do things together all the time. For example, we'd go to the dog park some Saturdays (with both our dogs or just mine, however it worked out). One Saturday we were out in the pouring rain for most of the afternoon! He'd help me give Mikey (my dog) a bath when he got dirty. When captioned movies would be shown in Vancouver, we'd go up there together.

So, I started to think that maybe he liked me.

As I was sitting in the airport terminal waiting for my flight to Utah for Thanskgiving, I sent him a note from my blackberry -- just telling him "hi". At that same moment, he was sitting at his desk at work typing an email to me. We were thinking of each other! I eagerly anticipated messages from him while in Utah. One message told me that there was a good deal on a 27" TV (which I'd had my eye on for a while and was planning to buy myself at Christmas) for just the day after Thanksgiving. He asked if I'd like him to get it since I was out of the state. That was stunning actually -- and confusing. Here a guy was offering to go out of his way to get something he knew I wanted -- but had never held my hand. I rationalized that he was just a nice guy and I fully anticipated paying him back.

When I returned to Oregon, he came by with the TV, we set it up and life was good. Little did I know how much my life was about to change.

According to him, he knew by now that he liked me and really wanted to hold hands. Sometime that week, we watched "Ice Age" - and he just felt it was the wrong kind of movie to make a move and hold hands for the first time - so he didn't. A day or two later, we went to see Santa Clause 2 - and again there was no hand holding. He later confessed that he had  wanted to put his arm around me -- but the arm rest between the seats prevented him from trying it. The next day, Saturday, was very busy. I volunteered for a few hours at OMSI, he picked up Mikey and we went to the dog park. After that, we grabbed some McDonald's for dinner and headed back to my apartment to watch his favorite movie, Castaway.  I'd never seen it before. During that movie, he made his move - holding my hand and then putting his arm around me. Very nice.

Two days later, we shared our first kiss. Oddly enough, we'd decided only earlier that day that we were boy/girlfriend. 

Unfortunately, I got sick later that week - about as miserable as one can get. Stamps showed his true colors and came over after work -- bringing soup and volunteering to walk Mikey for me so I could rest. After about a week and a half, I was feeling somewhat normal and we could go do things together again.

Through all of this, he'd been wanting to come to church with me - but his church responsibilities pretty much prevented it. He talked with his bishop and got permission to come on the 3rd Sunday of the month. So, December 15th found the two of us going to church together for the first time. The deaf branch absolutely loved him! He'd met many of them before - at the Thanksgiving party the month before.

One thing I should mention -- through all of this, he'd been really putting a lot of effort into learning American Sign Language (ASL). He considered himself "highly motivated" to learn. He is actually getting to be quite good at it if you ask me. He's come a LONG way from the "extremely limited" skills he had back when first started dating.

Six days later, I again found myself at the airport on my way to Utah (for Christmas) - only this time he was there to drop me off (and make sure I got through security) rather than sitting at work sending me an email.

Again, over the first week of Christmas vacation, we were emailing back and forth on my blackberry. A week after I'd left him, I picked him up from the Salt Lake Airport. That's right - he came down just after Christmas so he could meet my family and spend a few days with us in Utah. My family loved him. REALLY loved him. He and I were able to spend New Year's Eve together - which was great. We came back from Utah on New Year's Day. A month later, 1 Feb, 2003, he asked me to marry him - completely in sign language.

We got married a few moths later in the Portland Oregon Temple. :-)

That's how it all happened.

This page was last updated on 09-Jun-2007 22:14
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