When people ask us how we first met, I jokingly tell them Isaac was my anatomy tutor and we fell in love over the smell of formaldehyde and conversation of neck dissections, but our story is actually a lot less like a Korean drama and was much more organic, easy, seamless. Here’s how it really went. It’s June 2014, the summer before medical school, and I had moved to Loma Linda a few weeks early to find a house and get settled in. Ace picked Razele up from the airport and this girl came into my house doubled over LAUGHING. Following behind her was an equally amused and annoyed Isaac… Razele had slammed the car door on him as he was climbing out the backseat of his red two door Solara. It was like these two were old friends but had only known each other an hour long drive in from LAX. Here was this tall, dark, handsome dude *confidently wearing* a pink button up and khaki shorts, walking into my life, getting along with my best friends, and greeting me like he’d known me forever. We talked about his favorite museum in town (the Norton Simon), I was geeked that he knew the architects and buildings I wanted to see (Wayfarer’s Chapel by Frank Lloyd Wright and Walt Disney Concert Hall by Frank Gehry), and loved how much he loved cooking and eating well. My ultimate love language. He was a second year medical student and founder and soccer coach for a local health-initiative youth program, had finished his MPH and cultivated deep interest and past in global health and missions. It was game over for me from there. I was smitten. Cautious, as I was coming out of a long and tumultuous relationship and about to start medical school, but still… crushing hard. We all ate dinner and played cards together that evening, and were inseparable until my white coat ceremony. We spent the weeks before classes started watching movies, finding local eats, learning how to boogie board whenever we could escape out to the beach, and ate our way through ramen bars in LA and the OC.

The beginnings of our friendship revolved mostly around surviving medical school. We would meet in the pathology lab to study for hours at a time and moved to the University of Redlands library if we wanted a change in scenery aka windows (or a reason to stop at Cuca’s for a burrito afterwards). On August 21st, about two months into medical school, I was falling asleep on the couch pretending to watch Godzilla on an 15 inch laptop screen when he pressed pause (which promptly woke me up), looked at me, and between long awkward pauses and many sips of water, confessed his feelings and asked if I was interested in seriously dating – NO GAMES. I said hell yeah. I was all in. Dating between the chaos of lectures, labs, clinical rotations, test weeks and the nervous crying that comes with it, we learned to celebrate the little wins like golden weekends and the end of an exam block with the good life that southern California had to offer. We loved taking a breath of fresh air out of the smoggy inland empire out to the mountains, beaches, and deserts that we miss dearly. Date nights were easy with a Disneyland annual pass. And living near LA gave us so many opportunities to eat very, very well (seriously ask Isaac if you’re ever in the area, we’ve got a list)!

In March 2017, Isaac matched to family medicine in Dayton Ohio, graduated medical school just a few months later, and moved away for a *far too long* year apart. Thankfully my interview season gave us plenty of opportunities to explore the Midwest as I cozied up to the plans of spending the next six years of my life in Ohio. Finally match day 2018 confirmed my spot in an emergency medicine residency in Dayton, Ohio! In June 2018, I graduated medical school and bid farewell to my favorite state to start a new life 2,000 miles away.

In the winter of 2018, we discovered – nay, confirmed that I am a warm blooded, Texas raised island girl who is reduced to a miserable blob in 6 months of snow and ice. We broke up the long winter with trips to Colorado to ask for Apa and Mama Koh’s blessing, then out to Chicago to ask for my parent’s blessing in marriage. Both prompted a resounding yes!, lots of hugs and prayers, and immediate questions about children. Finally, on March 2nd 2019, Isaac proposed on the black sand beach of Waianapanapa State Park in Maui, Hawaii! I was ecstatic to trade in the grey skies and 30 degrees for warm sandy beaches, and even more overjoyed to finally start our life together. Isaac planned to propose on the next morning’s sunrise trip to the top of Mount Haleakala but the ring was burning a hole in his pocket, he was afraid he was going to lose it, and wanted to get the ring on my finger ASAP. We spent the rest of the week snorkeling and sunbathing, hiking and eating plenty of fresh fruit, poke, and shaved ice, and dreaming about the day we could get all our cherished friends and family together to celebrate the start of our life together. While we decided to delay our wedding due to COVID last year, we are thrilled that we’re at a point where we can bring people together safely. Please… for the love of God and your neighbors, and your friends and family working in your local hospitals and clinics, get vaccinated if you are able. We have not forgotten the horrors of COVID and the devastation it ravaged on patients and their families at its most horrendous stages. There will be young children in attendance who are unable to be vaccinated and because we cherish and love y’all, recommend coming to our wedding only if you are fully vaccinated. If you are unvaccinated and do decide to risk coming to be with us on this special day, would greatly appreciate continued recommended mask wearing during the ceremony and reception, and social distancing during the dinner service.

Within the last week, case numbers and deaths have continued to dangerously rise in Texas, with San Antonio and Jenn's hometown of McAllen as hotspots. Travel restrictions from Korea, Canada, Philippines have made it difficult for friends and family we love to make plans in sharing our celebration with us. For the collective health and well being of our most favorite people, our friends, our families, our elders, we have decided to postpone our wedding to next year. We pray for unified leadership and community effort to get us to the next phase of this pandemic. Until then, be well and stay safe.