Owen and Gizelles story began the way many modern love stories do—on Hinge. What Owen didn’t know at first was that the girl he had matched with lived in Seattle, while he was firmly planted in the Bay Area. Distance entered their story early, but it never stood a chance. They talked on and off, learning each other slowly, until one day Owen decided to take a leap of faith—with a little encouragement from his friends. He sent a message that would change everything: “Hey Gizelle, are you free Thursday night for a virtual date night?” Gizelle said yes to a sweet man she had never met, trusting the feeling that something about him was different. What began as one virtual dinner quickly turned into FaceTime calls every single day. Then one day, Owen said, "I want to fly to Seattle and see you. Just give me one week.” And he meant it. One week later, Owen stepped off a plane in Seattle, and when they met in person, it felt familiar—like finding something they didn’t know had been missing. He asked Gizelle to be his girlfriend, and from that moment on, everything began to fall into place. After countless FaceTime calls and many flights between OAK and SEA, love asked for something braver. Gizelle followed her heart to the Bay Area, where together they built a life—sharing an apartment in San Leandro, filling it with shared mornings, two beloved fur babies, Peppermint and Artemis, and the ever-present love of their angel babies, Lavery and Lainey, forever held close in their hearts. They fell in love slowly, and then all at once—one call, one flight, one brave leap of faith at a time. Their story reminds us that the most beautiful love stories don’t begin with certainty, but with commitment to choosing each other again and again.

“I have always found comfort in books, because authors give voice to the depths of human emotion in ways I sometimes struggle to put into words myself. Today, I borrow a few of those words to capture what I have always known in my heart — that I choose you, in every lifetime, in every moment. In the book, The Song of Achilles, Achilles says: “I would recognize you in total darkness, were you mute and I deaf. I would recognize you in another lifetime entirely, in different bodies, in different times. And I would love you in all of this, until the very last star in the sky burned out into oblivion.” This is my vow to you: to love you fully, endlessly, and without hesitation, in this life and in every life we are given…”