WordPress asks: How did you meet your significant other?
That sounds like it should have a simple answer. It doesn’t.
I first met Daryl in December 1988. I was still in the Air Force and had come to Jacksonville to spend Christmas with Mom, Dad, and Cheryl. This was also the same Christmas that ended with a breakup just before New Year’s, so apparently December 1988 was determined to leave a mark.
Daryl and me as I wished we could have been all along.
One day I was sitting in Mom’s office at church when Daryl came in to talk with her about an idea she had for a liturgical dance. According to Daryl, I barely even looked at her. This has apparently become part of the official historical record.
In my defense, I was a young single guy sitting in my mother’s office, and a very attractive woman had just walked in. There is a fine line between making polite eye contact and getting caught staring at a beautiful woman in front of your mother. Apparently I decided the safest strategy was to inspect everything else in the room.
So, no, it was not exactly love at first sight. Besides, Daryl was engaged.
Her fiancé was a guy named Mike, and they were married the following August, three days after I moved to Jacksonville to live with my family. I was actually at their wedding. I’ll simply say that Mike did not make a particularly strong impression on me and leave it there.
Over the next couple of years, Daryl and I occasionally talked, but mostly I saw her at church. Quite often, she was dancing. And like pretty much every other unmarried guy at St. Peter’s, I was awestruck.
Then life became considerably more complicated for her. By 1991, Daryl’s marriage was in trouble, and for a while she was essentially raising her new baby, Emily, on her own. That September, I noticed her at church with Emily. She was alone, and she looked sad, so I went over and talked to her.
Apparently I gave off more of an “I’m interested in you” vibe than I realized, because sometime during the following week, Daryl called me and invited me to a movie. Dutch treat, mind you. Let’s not get carried away.
We went to see The Fisher King, which is not exactly the movie I would have chosen if I had known I was participating in the opening chapter of a very long romantic story. But that movie began a wonderful month.
Daryl and I talked. We laughed. We spent time together. More than anything, we became really good friends. Maybe a little too good.
Daryl began feeling convicted that we were getting too close while she was still married, and she was right. So she made the decision to put some distance between us, and I respected that. Eventually she and Mike got back together, and Daryl and I largely went our separate ways.
We didn’t talk much for a very long time. There was an occasional message here and there, but for the most part, life kept moving.
For almost 24 years.
Then came 2015.
We started talking again, and there wasn’t some dramatic movie moment with violins playing in the background. There wasn’t a lightning bolt or a grand declaration that we had obviously been destined for each other since 1988. It was quieter than that.
We just began talking.
And somewhere in those conversations, it became pretty clear that whatever had started back in 1991 hadn’t exactly disappeared. Life had simply put a very long intermission in the middle of it.
The reconnection wasn’t instant, but it might as well have been.
So how did I meet my significant other? Technically, in my mother’s church office in 1988, where I apparently refused to look at her.
But I think the better answer is that we met several times. We met in 1988. We found each other in 1991. And in 2015, after almost a quarter-century had passed, we finally discovered that some stories don’t necessarily end when you think they do.
Sometimes they just wait for the next chapter.
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt
That’s a really nice story! Does your wife enjoy bourbon?
Sadly, no. Chardonnay.