How It Got To Be My Turn

If you see the cover photo of the 2010 Wedding & Special Event Guide and think “Chicago” or possibly “Diamond Beach on steroids” I wouldn’t blame you, but, the fact is, you’re witnessing a rite of passage.
Most families have some kind of rite-of-passage ritual that, all agree, means “you’re grown up now.” For some it’s buying that first house or the wedding ceremony itself, but for my siblings and me there was always that crossing-the-Rubicon feeling the moment our wedding photos hit the cover of the Herald’s annual Wedding guide.
As far as I know, this ritual got started when our family business—The Herald—was hunting for some cover photos years ago to complete its annual wedding guide. My youngest sister Meredith was recently married and she looked radiant in her wedding gown. You guessed it, her picture fit the bill and ever since that issue, all of us kids looked on in envy for their “turn” to cross that symbolic bridge.
Let me tell you how it got to be my “turn”.
Like most people who get married for the first time in their thirties, I guess you could call me a late bloomer. Not a late bloomer like Brahms, whose voice still squeaked of puberty in his mid-twenties and none but women by the hour would pay him any mind. For me, it just took longer to find that woman who could break through my shell or for whom I wanted to break out—who can tell which.
For most of my four years at Wildwood Catholic HS, I can remember being more fascinated by Heisenberg’s atomic uncertainty than female “uncertainty.” At some point, I can’t say when, that attitude became habit and I held it far too long. So long it was more like Linus’ blanket than a rational choice.
Luckily, as I got older and further from the five mile island I called home most of my life, I started to notice this blanket was a bit frayed and not so useful anymore. If I ever wrote one of those “Mommy dearest” books one day, I’d no doubt mention how my mother started me in school too early, but this isn’t one of those.
The woman who changed everything for me, Soledad Ayosa, came by Chance. The same kind of Chance that a famous scientist referred to when asked if God played dice, said, “Certainly, but he follows his own rules. And only the span between the two gives us meaning and freedom at the same time.” Our chance encounter was flight 836 from New York to Buenos Aires.
I had driven from Cape May to JFK that day to catch a flight to Argentina to work with our software programming team down there. She had the middle seat and I the aisle; there followed an uninterrupted 12-hour first encounter which left me desperate for more and her mildly amused BUT curious. After all, what kind of pick up line includes a fashion insult to an Argentinean girl?
I’m pretty sure I said something ridiculous about her shoes. If the flight were any longer our marriage would’ve died before it got off the ground. As it was, we both landed in Buenos Aires intrigued about the other and curious if we’d ever meet again.
In an earlier era that probably would have been the end—not enough runway to get airborne. This being the third millennium though, we did the natural thing instead—email. After a torrid winter of emailing, in which no subject was left undiscussed, we hit on the idea of another plane-fueled rendezvous, although this time Chance was not invited.
She flew in from her adopted homeland of Canada and I made the anxious drive from Cape May for a weekend in New York. My showing in New York must have been better than my opening act because that fast friendship was definitely turning more serious. That’s not to say there weren’t obstacles, the distance between Canada and Cape May being one of the smaller ones.
To give you an idea, I’d say that films are a poor excuse for a good book and that Woody Allen was a perverted, narcissistic, fool. She’d say that films are her favorite art form and Woody Allen the DaVinci of them all.
We usually agreed to disagree, until we either forgot our truce or decided the other was really just “not getting it.” Through it all, something deeper kept pulling us together and that New York adventure turned into a long list: Boston, Chicago, St. Andrews, Philadelphia…..
Over those years of constant email, untold cell minutes and enviable frequent flier status, I learned what I first perceived but dimly on that chance encounter, that I simply could not imagine a future without this amazing lady.
Experiencing life together with her brought new meaning, strength and yes, even partnership in times of trouble that would soon come. The tragedy of my brother’s death two months before our wedding day only served to confirm what my heart knew our bond was strong, the roots deep and like a rainbow, all our differences spoke a unity.
Perhaps now as you look at the cover photo you’ll see not the Chicago skyline or the Cape May County beginnings but a couple deeply loving crossing a bridge together.
Editor’s Note: Soledad Ayosa & Benjamin Hall were married in Chicago at Holy Name Cathedral on August 22, 2009. Benjamin Hall is Herald publisher, Art Hall’s son.