memory lane

I thought a bit of a trip down memory lane would be cool. This is a slightly edited version of the story of Moe and I getting together that I gave to the Minister before we got married. I’ll get Moe to post his too, since we both had to submit our stories of how we met separately to him. He used these stories to build up the narrative he used throughout the ceremony.


Moe and I first met one another my sophomore year (and his freshman year) in college in Vermont through a mutual friend. For the first few months of school we got to know one another and became fast friends. While this was happening I didn't think it would be anything more than a friendship as Moe was at the time, dating a girl so I thought of the relationship more in terms of friendship during that time. I didn't realize until later that he wanted more, but that he was afraid. It wasn't until one night when we were watching a movie at a friend's dorm room when he started to hold my hand that I realized he was really interested in being more than friends.

From that point on our friendship quickly developed into a relationship. However that relationship was quite complicated and there were a few bumps in the road. Not only was he still dating a girl from home, on campus he was not out or open about our relationship. That was difficult because I was very visible on campus as a Resident Assistant and the President of the Gay-Straight Alliance. So we kept our relationship under wraps from pretty much everyone, even ourselves as we never really talked about the two of us being together, it just sort of was.

I can remember going home for Thanksgiving and then Christmas break and telling my friends at home that I was dating someone and feeling so good about it. I didn't know exactly what it was at the time, but it just felt right between the two of us and just thinking about Moe would bring a smile to my face.

There were some issues in our early relationship, especially since he had not really admitted to himself that he was gay. At one point he told me that he was going to stay with the girl that he was dating and I was crushed. I guess I toughed it out though and it was pretty apparent to both of us that we were falling more and more in love, even as we both tried to avoid it.

When we left for Christmas Break we called each other almost every day and were writing letters back and forth. When we returned to school we planned on going away for the Martin Luther King weekend to Lake Placid in New York. We traveled there without any problem and went skiing and just enjoyed ourselves in Lake Placid. It was the first time we had traveled together and the first time Moe didn't have to pretend that there wasn't a relationship between us. By the time we packed up and were leaving, I think both us were just head over heals with one another.

That's when pretty much the unthinkable happened. As we were traveling back we were on Interstate 89 just outside of Burlington, Vermont when we hit black ice on the highway. I was driving and lost control of the vehicle. Amazingly we didn't hit anyone else on the highway but we did hit the snow bank and flipped the Jeep over. I was wearing a seatbelt but Moe wasn't and when we landed upside down during the flip, the sunroof in the Jeep shattered and Moe fell out through the sunroof.

I was pretty much unhurt in the accident but he was seriously injured, having broken several ribs, ruptured his spleen and shattered his jaw and other bones in his face. Thankfully the hospital in Burlington was nearby and after surgery and several weeks of recuperation (followed by more recuperation at home) he was able to heal up and get back to normal.

In the meantime I returned to college without Moe and pretty much at a loss of what to do. I did make it to the hospital for one weekend when I got to spend some time with him, but otherwise I didn't seem him for almost 3 months, all the contact we had were phone calls once he was out of the hospital and letters since I no longer had a car or a way to travel. I wasn't sure if the relationship would continue. I knew I loved him and I knew he loved me, but it seemed as if fate was conspiring against us with the accident.

He first came back to visit me at college with his girlfriend from home who he was still dating, but when she left us alone, he admitted to me that he loved me and missed me. However I really didn't know what to think considering he was still dating the girl and he wasn't going to be at school with me for us to continue our relationship. I just hoped it would work out I guess.

Moe came up again in mid-March of 1997 and this time he was alone. We talked for hours and hours and in the early morning hours of March 15, he asked me if I would be his boyfriend. I told him that I would be happy to be his boyfriend. It really was one of the happiest moments I can think of. While it wasn't going to be easy, I finally felt like we had 'started' our relationship, which I knew I wanted and now I knew he really wanted too.

There were still some bumps in the road to work out, like the fact that he was still dating a girl and stuff like that, but in the end we made it through and have been together and in a relationship since that morning.