Christina and Tommy

How they met

From Christina “I found the most amazing life partner in a place I thought meant the end of things: at a funeral. My friend Nick had passed away after a long struggle with addiction in June of 2015, and I was very much involved in trying to get him help for years leading up to his death. Nick didn’t have much family support, and there were no plans made for the final arrangements. I reached out to the funeral director that the family had chosen to help facilitate convincing the family to have a viewing, write an obituary, and allow for friends and family to pay their final respects appropriately at a public viewing. We worked together to make the best of a tragic situation and celebrate a person who meant a lot to his friends and family and had always tried to help others.

Tommy knew Nick through mutual friends over the years and was good friends with the funeral home director and his family. The night of the viewing, Tommy was asked to come and help out at the funeral home, and also to continue to check on me after the viewing since I had little support in managing the grief of losing someone so close to me. Interestingly, Tommy has a lot of experience with people in his family losing their lives to addiction, so he had so much insight and was really helpful to talk to. Tommy reached out to me every day, meeting up for a meal or doing something with his friends to get me out of the house and make sure I was doing okay. Tommy was really the greatest support for me during this time. We became fast friends who unexpectedly fell in love and have spent nearly every day together ever since.

Tommy and I are fairly private people, so the proposal was sweet and simple and at our home. Before leaving for dinner plans, he presented me with this book I had made him for our first Christmas together that had outlined all of the reasons why I loved him. He had updated some of the answers in the book for me to look through, and the ring was inside”.