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Photography by Steve Bracci
Whether rooted in serendipity or lifelong ties, the heartwarming tales of these four couples take a familiar path, one that begins with strong friendship and culminates in the marriage of two best friends for a lifetime.
Meant To Be
Achih and Mary Chen
“If your wedding is the best day of your life, then what happens after that?” rhetorically asks Achih Chen. Best days are rarely remembered as the momentous milestones. The best of the best are cloaked in the ordinary—disguised as the mundane. The best days arrive unexpectedly, unplanned and often are the best not because of the day itself but because of the direction life takes when the best day is done. A best day settles a person closer to center.
One might venture to say that Mary, Achih’s wife, experienced a best day six years and nine months before the wedding—before either knew the other. On an August morning in 1990, Mary, who, like Achih, had decided to enter the physiology and biophysics doctoral program at the University of Iowa, approached the classroom on her first day of enrollment. Achih stood confidently at the door. Having entered the program at the beginning of the summer, he was a veteran checking out the new arrivals. Mary says of their encounter at the start of class, “I knew right away that we would be friends forever.”
Similarly, neither had the heart for a career in academia. They both withdrew—Achih first, Mary later—to attend medical school. The doctoral degrees were doomed, but the necessary diversion of graduate school initiated a friendship that would transport them from that classroom doorway to medical school to residencies to internships to a lifetime.
One could argue that Achih’s best day preceded the wedding as well. Finished with medical school at the University of Iowa, he headed to Michigan State to complete a surgical internship, leaving Mary, still head-down in her medical studies, behind in Iowa City. As soon as he planted his feet on the Michigan State campus, all he wanted to do was get back in his truck and point it toward Iowa and Mary. Suddenly, years of friendship, held together by long talks over the phone and the occasional dinner, added up to something more. “There’s obviously a reason why you keep calling the same person,” he observes in retrospect.
Fireworks didn’t burst and crackle in the sky. No one officially announced a declaration of adoration or launched a campaign for coupledom. It just happened, natural as the tides. “I couldn’t imagine things being any different,” says Achih. Mary eases her upper body toward him without conscious effort, as if pulled by an invisible force. “Me either,” she says radiantly. Tears spontaneously trickle from the corners of her eyes. She adds, “He’s the other half of me.” The raw sincerity is disarming.
To thwart the impression that all is bliss and butterflies, they then unload the baked catfish story. Mary frames it in terms of the six-month break-in period, which she defines as that phase in a new marriage when the heretofore suppressed idiosyncrasies of the individuals leach to the surface. In spite of how much time the pair spent together before they got married, surprise and dismay abound. It’s those fleeting months in a marriage when the great divide between one another’s habits, likes and dislikes is discovered and painstakingly ignored or even misguidedly complimented. Each regards the other in consternation, secretly thinking, “Who is this person?”
Thus, when Mary served her baked catfish dish for dinner for the first time, Achih oohed and ahhed over it. Mary served it again. Achih, again, basted Mary with expressions of delight. Baked catfish earned a spot in the meal rotation and the first six months passed with the aroma of a culinary anomaly routinely wafting from the kitchen. When at great last Mary and Achih sliced through the thin membrane of the break-in period and he finally mustered the nerve to tell her that catfish should only be served fried, it was the best day since the wedding. What a relief. Mary, too, despised the baked catfish dish and savored the sweet thought of until-death-do-us-part without it.
At the very heart of their relationship is the joy they take in conversation with each other. It began with long phone calls from Achih during the intense years of medical school when the content of the next test preoccupied their thoughts and structured their existence. Highly driven people like Achih, a facial plastic surgeon, and Mary, an internal medicine specialist, risk losing sight of “real life” in the ongoing sprint to the next level. Not only do they support each other in their strivings for excellence, but they also safeguard for each other the marrow of their union. Making a point to spend evenings in one another’s presence, appreciating the contributions each makes to the dialogue, reminding each other to breathe: These are the tasks of a marriage intentionally focused on the journey.
The best day, they’ve discovered, is simply a day spent together without distractions—a day untangled from the complexities of life. “I like to pack everyone,”—himself, Mary, and their two children, Jacob, 6, and Maddie, 4—“in the car and drive somewhere. It’s having everybody in the same place at the same time and just talking,” says Achih. There’s no magic to a day like this. “Finding who makes you happy is the secret,” he concludes.
Love and Faith
Sharon and Eddie Bussey
Up in the choir stand, Sharon waited for the cue for the next hymn. Her father addressed his First Bryan Baptist Church congregation. At the back of the church someone opened the doors and from her prime viewing position Sharon spotted the man doing his best to make an unobtrusive entrance. But he was noticed. His strong good looks struck Sharon like a revelation. “Who is that?” she thought, watching him all the way to his seat. “He’s so cute!”
Discreetly sliding into a pew, Eddie Bussey settled in for the sermon. He had purposely arrived late to avoid the passing of the microphone routine that required visitors to stand and introduce themselves. Eddie had come at the behest of one of the church deacons with whom he had worked on an insurance settlement for State Farm. As he took in his surroundings, the elevated choir stand at the front of the sanctuary lifted his gaze to the faces of Sunday morning song. One stood out. She was beautiful.
Sharon watched the deacon approach her father and slip a piece of paper into his hand. The pastor read it to himself and then said, “Before we finish, I’d like to welcome Eddie Bussey to Savannah. He works at State Farm. Eddie, stand up for us.” Sharon’s stomach went swimmy. She thought, “Oh my. That’s the same cute guy I saw walk in.”
The man’s name drew immediate recognition too. On Tuesday, she had spoken with him over the phone. Their brief exchange convinced her that the person on the other end was as good looking as the timbre of his words. His smooth, deep voice rolled like the comfort and thrill of distant thunder on a summer night.
The last hymn couldn’t crescendo and end soon enough. Anything but bashful, at the close of the service, Sharon marched right up to Mr. Eddie Bussey without hesitation. Opportunity budged destiny and Sharon cleared a path for momentum to build. Eddie blinked. The stunning woman from the choir appeared before him. Eddie silently admired her confidence, her compassionate spirit and her ability to put him at ease.
Destiny’s momentum carried Eddie and Sharon from opportunity’s doorstep to I-do on August 30, 1997. Auspiciously, rain poured from the sky in huge hot-weather droplets during their ceremony, portending the blessing of children. Now when he comes home from the office, not only is his beautiful choir girl waiting for him, but two pretty daughters as well. Like their mother, Aniyah, 9, and Alexis, 7, revel in their father’s voice and his company. “It makes me forget all of the challenges of being a small business owner,” Eddie, who is a State Farm agent, contentedly sighs, “when I see the three of them waiting at the door.”
Happiness like this, the Busseys would contend, doesn’t just happen. They acknowledge their marriage as a covenant ordained by God. “It’s something bigger than us,” explains Eddie. “It’s about more than Eddie and Sharon.” Everything they do, from praying with and for each other to attending church together to parenting their daughters, bears out that belief. Each has joyfully accepted a role—Sharon as family nurturer, Eddie as head of the household—and each trusts the other to faithfully fulfill the obligations of the role for the good of the family. Keeping God first in the face of distractions empowers them, says Sharon. It’s the reason they look at each other and genuinely say, in unison, “We don’t argue.”
From spiritual roots grow mutual respect and physical affection. Eddie says of Sharon, who is a supervisor at the Department of Labor, “She has found a way to be a career mom and a wife and pull it off. She gets it all done.” Sharon’s devotion to him and their children resonates with Eddie and his conviction that both spouses must be all in for the good of the family. Eddie’s commitment shines in the way he looks at Sharon. She feels it when he puts his arm around her, when he greets her with a hug and a kiss, when he collects her hand into his.
From the instant Eddie’s gentle voice mesmerized Sharon, they were bound to one another. The first date, the proposal and the wedding completed destiny’s job. Destiny then handed over the reins of momentum to forever. “When we got there and got on that balcony and I was looking at the ocean, that’s when I cried. I couldn’t believe we had done it and it was official,” Sharon recalls of their honeymoon on Amelia Island. It’s an official happily-ever-after.
The Dance Goes On
Catherine and Daniel Stewart
Catherine’s Henry Street cottage lay in darkness as she and Daniel walked to the front door. He opened it for her and flipped the switch on the wall, dousing the room in sudden light that whispered a silent, “Surprise!” Catherine gasped. A regular Friday date-night transformed into the unexpected. She had successfully convinced herself, due to Daniel’s house hunting, that there was a whole lot of distance between her and a marriage proposal.
Candles flickered from every surface. The glimmering flames testified to the landscape of pink flowers—every kind available in Augusta in March—that indeed Catherine had underestimated Daniel. A trail of pink petals led up the stairs to the loft, encouraging Catherine to follow. A bottle of champagne and two crystal stems bubbled with anticipation of discovery. Catherine turned, still speechless, to see Daniel on one knee.
Catherine, now 28, met Daniel, 29, at sixth grade Social. They were kids then, fresh-faced, awash with promise and potential, conspiring to poke fun at the manners being taught. One evening, either by design of Daniel or design of the universe, or as a result of Daniel being a typical male child, his carpool left without him. Boldly, he asked Catherine’s mother for a ride home. “The minute Daniel got out of the car, my mom looked at me and said, ‘Catherine, that boy loves you,’” she recalls.
Daniel quickly adds, laughing, that it was actually Catherine who was obsessed with him. She agrees, “After our first date,” which didn’t happen until the summer after their freshman year in high school, “I was crazy about him.” Reaching back to the fortuitous ride home from Social, Daniel, in a serious tone, says, “We instantly had a friendship connection where I could be my self. She was the first girl, coming right out of girls having cooties, that I wanted to hang out with.” In the ensuing years of Social, their friendship grew and they developed a ritual of ending every class by dancing the last dance together. They giggle now, remembering how the tradition annoyed their respective Social partners.
Though boyfriend and girlfriend through the final three years of high school, they made a deal to take a break from each other during college. Catherine stayed home and attended Augusta State University. Daniel went to Athens to study at the University of Georgia. She worked full time, in addition to pursuing a degree. He became a self-described “typical, good-for-nothing college bum,” sporting suspect grades, long hair and extra pounds. They stayed in touch, but dated other people.
“She found everyone fell really, really short compared to me,” says Daniel, only half-joking. As the summer prior to his junior year waned, the realization that he could never meet another person who loves him the way Catherine does penetrated him like a bullet in the back. He needed her. He needed the painfully absent power she possessed to make him a better person. How could he reject the gift of having someone who knew he was awash in promise and potential? “That’s a big thing,” Daniel says, “to have someone you could disappoint.” His clarity culminated in a letter begging Catherine to be his girlfriend again.
A more perfect conveyance of his feelings for Catherine could not have been composed. She understands the language of letters. Every day in high school she wrote him a lengthy note. The collected and catalogued volumes form the basis of Daniel’s contention of Catherine’s obsession with him. She wrote letters with lists, letters giving him assignments, letters of her undying devotion, letters about her day, tucking them beneath the wiper blade of his car, dropping them off at his house, slipping them to him whatever way she could. Unbeknownst to her, he saved every one.
When he stood to speak at their rehearsal dinner, Daniel opened the box of sacred texts, plucking various selections and reading them to an appreciative audience. Love notes from a 15-year-old girl to her future husband are highly amusing. But they also reveal an earnest and unfettered heart. The last letter he shared contained a list of teenage Catherine’s 100 reasons why she loves him. Reason number one: Because of the way he loves me. It’s still her number one reason. Catherine has never wavered. “Whatever path I was going to take, he was right there with me,” she says.
As they approach their fifth anniversary, the future invites them to continue compiling their already chaptered history. Catherine still leaves love notes around the house for Daniel, which, he jovially quips, are mostly to-do lists. Daniel treasures them anyway. “I think the glue,” says Catherine, explaining their uncommon bond that survived the folly of youth, “is that honestly we’re each other’s best friend.” The dance goes on.
Simply Serendipity
Milledge and Joanne Peterson
More than their marriage is housed in the realm of overdue serendipity; it is cradled in the notch of togetherness. Joanne and Milledge Peterson have known each other since Barbies and Tonka trucks littered their bedroom floors, both having grown up in Augusta. Stumbling upon the obvious, however, eluded them.
They had every opening two kids could hope for to get into mischief, to forge a friendship, to loll about in the youthful luxury of nothing to do. They went to church at Trinity on the Hill, together. They sang in the choir, together. They participated in the youth group, together. History intertwined their Christmases and their family vacations, together. Yet, obliviousness prevailed over proximity. “We were acquaintances growing up,” Milledge says. Joanne nods and agrees, “I’d never seen Milledge as someone to be attracted to,” adding that had they dated each other then, they probably would not be married now.
Burgeoning maturity stripped the scales from their eyes. In the fall of Joanne’s junior year at the University of Georgia, where she majored in interior design, she escaped home for a visit. Fate, impersonating chance, brought Milledge to Augusta from Atlanta, where he was working as a financial analyst at IBM. The weekend invariably threw their families together at a wedding. What better setting for romance to raise its heart-shaped head? A spark ignited, illuminating each to the other in a whole new light. All the dander of days gone by fell from their shoulders, as they appraised each other for the very first time. Before long, they kept the DOT busy filling in the deep ruts worn in the road between Athens and Atlanta. “We got through the week to get to the weekend,” Milledge says with a grin. Those were heady days of getting to know someone he’d known all his life.
A year-and-half later, in the spring of ’98, he knelt on one knee in his apartment waiting for Joanne to say yes. She flopped in a chair reading an inscription Milledge had written inside the cover of a poetry book he presented to her. “She probably saw the ring before she finished reading it,” laughs Milledge about his own impatience. Closing a 10-month engagement, they said their vows the following February at Trinity on the Hill with the blessings of their parents and 400 guests.
Shortly into their marriage, the post 9/11 disquiet that settled on the country also weighed heavily upon Joanne and Milledge. Transferred to Raleigh with IBM, Milledge advanced to a management position. Joanne continued her career in commercial interior design. But both wrestled with a void. Intense yearning for home and extended family engulfed them. The ruts in the road now ran between Augusta and North Carolina.
In 2002, fate once again intervened, posing, as one would expect, in the sheep’s clothing of chance. While spending a weekend basking in the warmth of family, Joanne ran an errand with her mother-in-law to Bedford Greenhouses—a delightful plant nursery snuggled on 10 acres of land at the back of Bedford Heights, between the neighborhood and Riverwatch Parkway. To that point, it had served the city for more than 50 years. “I never even knew Bedford existed,” Joanne confesses. The road home, though she didn’t know it at the time, led straight there.
That evening, Milledge relaxed in the living room craving to tuck the intangible into a pocket and take it back to Raleigh with them. His mother mentioned in conversation that the owners of Bedford Greenhouses talked of retiring. They were seeking the right buyers. Joanne says, “That sent Milledge’s mind going as to how we could do it.” By July, they reached their destination.
There are things in the world clamoring for our attention: people, places, opportunities. We sidestep most, discounting them as too obvious or overlooking them in the midst of our busyness. But to stop and acknowledge and accept can alter our course. For Joanne and Milledge it’s a lesson not lost. Twice now, their entire future pivoted when they unwittingly tripped over the evident.
For 10 years now, Milledge and Joanne have gotten out of bed together, operated the nursery together and raised their children, Sam, 7, and Kate, 3, together on the Bedford Greenhouses property where they live and work. There’s nothing they don’t know about each other. Milledge accepts that Joanne hides a chair under a pile of her clean clothes. Joanne puts up with Milledge’s Sunday afternoon projects. The simplicity of embracing what was there all the while saturates their days with clarity. “This is where we want to be,” confides Joanne. “This is the pace of life we want.”
