Our story

He says…

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.

Lewis Carrol

In 2005, like Alice, Sarah and I found ourselves at our own fork in the road. She had just graduated high school and was entering into her last summer before beginning college. I had just traveled to the US for the first time, taking a break from my second year of college. We were set to spend the summer as camp counselors for kids ranging in from kindergarten age to high school seniors. We were ready for a lot of work and a lot of fun.

We ended our summer wondering, just like Alice “which road do I take?” We weren’t sure where we wanted to go either. Or perhaps we did.

We parted ways, Sarah going off to college and I returned home to Cape Town. Days became weeks, weeks became months but I returned to the US 10 months later and we’ve been together ever since. I wouldn’t let the months turn to years.

This was never a love at first sight story. This has always been a choice – an honest every day choice. And after four years of long distance dating and so far 10 years of marriage,  2 kids, 5 moves and a dog, navigating illness and career changes and all of the ups and downs life continues to throw our way, we still choose us.

She says…

When we first met in 2005, on one of our last evenings together, the first song we ever danced to was Howie Day’s Collide. It was perfect. Because that’s how Clement entered my life –  as a collision. An unexpected, course changing, life altering, beautiful collision.

A year and a half later we danced again to John Legend’s Ordinary People. That dance stands out in my mind because it was the morning after we had our first, terrible argument (not our last). As we reconciled that day, what we were really doing was choosing forgiveness, love, and each other. Those two dances at the beginning of our relationship so neatly express who we are as a couple. We’re two ordinary, imperfect people whose lives collided. Some would say, “and the rest is history,” but I say, the best is yet to come.