How I met your… (part 2 of 4)

 

Yesterday I kicked off the first of the “How I met your…” series in celebration of my 3rd wedding anniversary this Thursday. You can read about my parent’s story here. Before I share another story, three years ago today was our mehndi celebrations and so I thought I’d share a clip of the festivities.  Traditionally, a mehndi is celebrated by Pakistani and Indian couples and not Sri Lankans, but it is one of my favourite rituals and so I had to incorporate it into our special week. Back in the day a couple would meet for the first time at the mehndi and it would be a celebration of two families coming together. Ofcourse today much has changed but the ritual of celebrating with song, dance and merriment  continues. Warning : It is a long video as I tried to include various parts of the traditions along with the dancing.

 

And now here is part two!

 

My husband’s parents Paul and Jo-Anne : Written from my father in law’s perspective. This September they will be celebrating their 37th wedding anniversary.

 

With my new family during our Mehndi in Colombo

You asked how Jo-Anne and I met.

That was a considerable time ago. I believe that it was in the year 1975, which was the year that I “interned” in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

I was on the last stretch of my journey towards a career in medicine and was living in an apartment with a close friend by the name of Gerry Reardon.

I was a member of the medical fraternity Phi Chi, the oldest medical fraternity in North America. The “frat house” was on 1328 Robie Street, not far from all the major hospitals and the Medical School itself. I was the official bar manager in the “frat house”. I had lived there for the first three years of my medical schooling. It was during a weekly event called “Last Call” that I met Jo-Anne. It had been in fact myself, Gerry and a lad by the name of Arthur Zilbert( and a few others) who had initiated this tremendously successful weekly social event, which continued for many years after we had vacated the premises and indeed the city. It became a social milieu for all the medically oriented young people in Halifax. Physiotherapists, nurses, medical students, medical technologists all gathered there on Thursday night to “unwind”. So electric was the atmosphere at Phi Chi on Last Call night that even the law students at “Domus Legis” (the law fraternity) were drawn to our frat house. On a few occasions even the Dean of Medicine (Dr. Chester B. Stewart) came to Last Call.

My husband with his parents and sisters during the Poruwa ceremony in Sri Lanka

Jo-Anne and a group of her friends (Lynn, Mary, Mary, Judy) began to frequent the frat house for “Last Call” and it was there that I first met her.We seemed quite compatible right at the start and indeed some people even thought that we looked like brother and sister!Jo-Anne was working on the Burn Unit at the Victoria General Hospital that year and I was here and there on various “rotations’ but was drawn to that ward many days and evenings by some invisible magnet. Our relationship seemed to develop with the speed of a fire . I can’ t remember when I proposed to be honest. As best I can recall, it was on some cozy evening in her apartment when both of us were contemplating the urgency of our future. Before I knew it, I found myself seated in front her mother Isabel, involved in a conversation that was most un-nerving. I was defending my recent commitment to marry Jo-Anne. You would have to know Isabel to have any idea of how that conversation went. To say that I was on the “hot seat” would be an understatement. Isabel was against the whole idea and insisted that I didn’ t know what I was getting into! Nonetheless I stood my ground and was soon given the opportunity to meet Jo-Anne’ s dad, Jim Cody. Jim and I got along famously right away and there was no turning back.

At our Cape Breton Wedding

Shortly after I had graduated ,I made a commitment to go to work in Trepassey, a remote community on the Southern Shore of Newfoundland, and so Jo-Anne and I had to part company for a short while. It didn’ t take long to get lonely. We found ourselves living together in Trepassey for a time and then returned to Halifax to get married at Mount Saint Vincent University Church. The honeymoon started the next day. We went to Bermuda. A lot of things have come to pass since that day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please do share how your folks met.. if you know the story!

Update :

Part 1 of 4 click here

Part 3 of 4 click here

Part 4 of 4 click here

  • Alex
    July 24, 2012 at 9:37 pm

    I LOVE this. Such a fun story to share.

  • How I met your… (part 4 of 4) | Baby and Life!
    July 26, 2012 at 9:54 am

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    September 19, 2012 at 3:04 pm

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    […] is the final day of this celebratory week. I’ve shared stories about how my parents met and how my husband’s parents met and today you get to hear my husband’s narration  about  how we met and the tales that […]

  • JaimeeM
    December 15, 2014 at 7:33 am

    Stunning in that wedding dress. thank you for shairng your story. 🙂

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