We met online April 12th, last year and got to know one another via skype prior to my first visit in June. I still remember meeting in the evening in Caracas Airport. She was as sweet and stunning in person as via webcam. We felt a mutual chemistry from the first phone call to the first meeting that evening. She drove me in the seemingly insane Venezuealan traffic with the skill and determination of Danica Patrick, sans the horsepower, but I noted her focused and sophisticated determination to protect this tall, lighter skinned North American looking guy from all the possible subterfuge of Caraqueño miscreants.
Looking back, our intersts in medicine and anthropology provided us with hours of back and forth conversation leading to a total of seven visits this past year. We are now struggling through nearly two months of separation and learning that love is patient and kind, and not always simply a chemical rush of phenylethylamine, or 'falling in love', but is a persistent push toward something of value here and for the afterlife.
Hazel will have her interview in less than two weeks and we are still finalizing receipt of my tax/bank/pay/airline receipts, printing color photos of our times traveling to Chorouni and Coche, and her physical exam and the landslide of forms she must present.
It has been a blessing to read of other couples who have paved the road ahead of us, Especially Andrea and Henry who are avidly interested in seeing other couples find the kind of happiness that resounds in their lives.
We plan on a civil wedding with my family in New Mexico later this summer followed by an Eastern Orthodox Christian Church Ceremony in Virginia in the fall: God willing....
