KELSEY + MING

photo | Courtney Leigh Photography

KELSEY + MING

The typical love story usually goes in a semi specific sequence. Meet the love of your life, promise to be together in sickness and in health, and then later in that togetherness go through the sickness part. God had other plans with us and decided our story would be a little backwards, and we couldn’t be more thankful. We met while Ming was sick, fell in love while getting healthy, and now we are promising to do that together forever!

We originally met 11 years ago at a summer camp on Lake Travis… in a sense. We both worked at the camp but didn’t really communicate. I was a camp counselor alongside two of Ming’s older brothers, and Ming was on the Travis crew. Not quite woking hand in hand but aware of each other. End camp and fast forward 10 years to when I got a message from Ming’s older brother saying he saw my picture on a bulletin board posted on my hospital unit. It was a surprise to hear from him and an even bigger surprise when he told me his little brother was a patient. Sadly, I was out of the country and couldn’t say hello. Another week or two later, I got another message from that brother telling me that Ming was going to be admitted to the hospital again and asked if I could check up on him. This time he was out of the country and didn’t want Ming to be alone. Lucky for me, Ming ended up being admitted to the same unit I worked on. I walked into his room not really knowing exactly what to say and the first words out of Ming’s mouth were, “Do I know you?” Very charming. It made me giggle. I ended up visiting with him through his hospital stay (with lots of funny stories mingled in) and kept him company when he didn’t have visitors. Eventually, Ming got discharged for good (yahoo!), and we kept in touch. One day Ming finally asked me if he could see me to say thank you. Ming’s mom dropped him off close to where I live since he couldn’t drive yet. We drank smoothies and walked around talking for a couple hours and quickly realized we’d be best friends forever!

Over the Fourth of July, all of Ming’s family got together at their parents’ lake house in Georgia to celebrate the holiday. A couple nights into the trip Ming told me that everyone was going out to dinner and to be ready at a certain time. When that time rolled around he came to find me for a walk on the dock since apparently everyone wasn’t ready yet. A little hesitant because I was worried that my hair would be ruined in the Georgia humidity, we walked out to the dock and took a seat on the edge watching the water. It just so happened to be that on that day we had been dating for exactly 13 months. To my surprise, Ming made a very romantic scrapbook of our time together and his favorite moments. As I flipped through the memories, some of my favorite love songs started to play in the background. I thought it was a weird coincidence, but didn’t really think much into it. Eventually the scrapbook ended, Ming and I embraced, and I immediately felt bad that I hadn’t done anything for him. As we got up to walk back, Ming kept dragging me into the sunny part of the dock. As I fought to get back to a more shaded area, Ming grabbed my waist to keep me in place and kneeled in front of me. Immediately I started to get teary eyed, and he so sweetly asked me to marry him and be his forever. Without hesitation I said, “Of course!” Cheering started, and Ming’s sneaky family came out taking pictures giving all the hugs. The whole thing was picture perfect!