We got this story into us on how this couple met and wanted to share it with you. Divine intervention perhaps? Read the story and our interview that follows with this month’s spotlight couple Lonnie and K. Danielle Edwards:
We have been married for nearly five years; this is the second time around for us, having gotten married immediately after I graduated from college and divorcing less than a year later. We are parts right brain and left brain; I am the more creative one, as a writer and poet, who works by day in corporate communications and moonlights as a graduate student and freelancer. He is a tech-head, working as a network engineer and moonlighting as Mr. Fix It, as he singlehandedly works on remodeling our home.
We are self-professed soul mates. Back when we first met in college, he had been looking for me for months – attending various clubs, churches, grocery stores, etc. – after having seen me briefly in the Records Office at Tennessee State University. Well, one day I was walking to class in the heat of summer, when I entered the building where my class was being held. I was stopped by an elder black woman, donning a heavy black coat (mind you, in the blistering heat of summer). She said, “Stop. Someone is running after you.” I turned around and saw the man who is now the love of my life. When I turned to see the mysterious woman in the black coat in 80+ degree weather, she was gone, as if she had never been there. In retrospect, we both think she was sent from the Divine, specifically at that time to make our introduction.
We have two daughters, ages almost 4 and seven months. We have been through so much – toxic in-laws (his parents), reconciliation and remarriage and living as an anomaly, in a nation where 70 percent of black kids are born outside of marriage and we’re among the few black married couples with kids we know.
-
Interview:
BMWK: Lonnie what was it that had you looking around town for K. Danielle?
Lonnie: Well, intially when I first saw her in the admissions office at Tennessee State University in the winter of 1998, it was like a flashback to a dream I had years prior of a woman who was said to be my wife in my dream, with long locks and a lighter complexion, but her face was blurred. No matter how much I tried to look at her face in my dream, there was this bright light blocking it. It was as thought I wasn’t meant to see it.
I immediately knew she was supposed to be my wife when I saw her. It was like divine intervention. God spoke to me.
BMWK: K. Danielle when you first learned that he had been looking for you what was your first impression?
K. Danielle: The average person might assume I didn’t believe him, but I did. He seemed sincere, and his words did not have the pretense of a pick-up line or come on. His description of everything he had done – all the places he had gone and all the people he had asked about me – was too detailed to be a stunt. The fact that standing before me was this guy who was my physical ideal – dark, tall, muscular with locks – did not hurt either.
BMWK: How do you currently deal with inlaws or friends that don’t benefit or support the marriage?
K. Danielle: We don’t. We haven’t communicated with his parents since I was five months pregnant with our first daughter, and that was more than four years ago. I must say that I occassionally think about them from the point of view of how my children will deal with not knowing or meeting their paternal grandparents, or their paternal aunts and uncle. Then I realize that I, too, didn’t experience similar relationships in my own childhood with certain relations, though not due to such negative circumstances, and in retrospect don’t feel deprived or shortchanged in any way. If anything, considering the reality and facts of the situation, the current dilemma protects my children from an unhealthy dynamic and enables me to surround them with loving, contaminant-free relatives. I was once full of anger, then I was preoccupied. Over time, I have grown indifferent and completely forgive them, though I cannot foresee them ever having a place in my life.
Lonnie: The issue lies with my immediate family. I take the higher road, which is the spiritual one – meaning that I have my own family now, so I no longer cleave to my mother, like so many grown men do. I have my own household, and that’s who I take care of, rather than family who have let me down. I love them but do not care to ever speak to them again.
BMWK: You sound like two totally different people, do you think the old saying is true that opposites attract and do you think this brings more to your relationship?
K. Danielle: I view myself as the creative counterpart in the relationship and him as the pragmatic, utility-minded individual. I write poems and short stories and read literature; he can remodel houses and build computers. On the other hand, I am a methodical planner – a type A person – consistently thinking about what I will be doing – or need to do – next week, next month, next year, in five years, in three decades … so he helps me stay grounded and enjoy the moments that I might otherwise miss entirely.
Lonnie: I don’t agree with the statement that opposites attract in general, but with us it is quite helpful in our relationship. Case in point, she grew up in somewhat of a white collar neighborhood and household, whereas I grew up in a blue collar one. I learned to do home and automotive repairs based on necessity to basically survive. She would be more inclined to call and hire someone to perform such work. That is just one example of the differences and how they function in our marriage.
BMWK: After going through your marriage for a second time what advice would you offer to couples just starting out or to our single readers?
K. Danielle: Communication, discipline, focus and broad-mindedness, with an eye on the future, are key. So is dedication and maturity, which enables individuals to do something I feel is critical in maintaining a positive marriage: Accepting and possibly internalizing advice only from individuals who are in stable, long-term, happy and fulfilling marriages. So often, younger married people too seriously regard the largely baseless (at least, experientially) input from friends who have never been married or had a solid, long-term relationship. While I might find the advice of my never-married or childless friends interesting, provocative or even entertaining, I find it difficult in many cases to apply their opinions on relationship issues to the much more complicated matters that are integral to the daily and long-term issues of a marriage. I believe finding other married couples who share your values is vital. We are still navigating that trajectory; as a married black couple with children in this age, we certainly feel like a minority. It’s not cool to be us. We are like aliens. We are the anti-statistic. No one is making movies about us. We are like the image in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled of the black family missing in action, a relic of a seemingly mythic past.
Lonnie: Understand that marriage is a career, meaning it’s more than just a second job. You have to look at it the same way as you do with your professional career. You can’t treat it like it’s a lackluster job that you feel you can leave and easily replace with another. You have to work at it and practice – daily.
BMWK: Thank you both for sharing your time and your story with the Black and Married With Kids family!
If you or someone you know would like to be featured as our couple of the month send us an email with your story to: info@blackandmarriedwithkids.com.