How did ya'll meet?

A dear friend of mine named Holly is getting married tomorrow. This will be her third marriage and the fact that she had enough faith to give true love a chance gives me hope. She and her soon-to-be husband Kevin made a Webpage with their wedding information and one of the topics they wrote about is how they met.

I found it interesting that they grew up in the same area so they met when he was 21 and she was 13 through a group of mutual friends. But at the time neither took much notice of the other. How could they ever know that so many years later they would be soul mates raising a blended family together? I’m so happy for them.

Tarleton State Univeristy--rodeo captial of the world

Holly and I had a similar experience in our friendship. We met in college at Tarleton State University working at the school newspaper, The J-TAC. We grew up near each other and we felt like we knew each other for some reason. Then one day we discovered that we went to the same church when we were kids and we hung out with the same circle of kids.

There was a priest named Father Denison who took a bunch of us around to go to fun events in town. Apparently he had been good friends with Holly’s parents. Father Denison always gave me the creeps and my sister and I spent a lot of time alone with him.

My last memory of him was he was chasing Amy and I up a tree in our backyard while we were waiting for my parents to get home. For some reason we were scared to death of him and I remember he had been biting on my ear and rubbing on my legs all day—I was about 6 years old at the time.

Holly told me he ended up getting accused of molesting children and everyone who knew him was devastated by the news. She and I both agreed that there was something weird about that guy. But the thought of knowing each other at such a young age made us feel a little closer—like we were destined to be best friends.

I find myself thinking about fate a lot lately. These days Robby and I get the “how did ya’ll meet?” question a lot. Most of you know that we met online through EHarmony (which I would highly recommend). But there are times when we wonder if we ever crossed each other’s path here in Savannah before we met. We also wonder if we would have met without EHarmony.



Ellie and Carl falling in love in "Up."



The other day we were talking about the Disney Pixar movie “Up.” Robby said he went to see that movie the first day it opened at 5:00—I also took the kids the exact same day at the same time at the same theater.

It gave me chills, but Robby just shrugged his shoulders and said that he would have remembered seeing me there. I doubted it—I kept a pretty low profile back in those days. I had no desire to date or meet anyone during that time in my life and I think I did a pretty good job keeping men away.

Either way, it made me realize that there is a plan set up for all of us. I could have run into Robby a year ago, but it just wasn’t meant to be. It’s hard to know if a chance encounter will turn into a life-long friendship or just a one-time meeting. I doubt Holly would ever believe that some random guy she met when she was 13 would become her husband 23 years later.

And for me, I cannot believe that over a year ago the same man who has turned my life around and made me believe in love again was sitting in the same theater with me and my children—both of us crying over the fact that the old man from “Up” had lost the love of his life. Little did we know that we were destined to be together and we would find each other online.