In August of 2014, Lawrence flew from Boise to Miami for his first date with Geneve. While waiting outside the airport, he could feel the sweat trickling down his back as the minutes ticked by. Geneve called to tell him that she was lost. Miami’s high humidity and the long wait to meet the woman that might just be his soulmate weren't helping Lawrence’s nerves. “I kept thinking about what I would say or how I would act,” Lawrence recalls.
During the hour he waited for her, he kept trying different standing poses to look more attractive for the beautiful Haitian-born woman who was late to pick him up. “He was leaning on the wall trying to look cool, but he was soaking wet from sweat, and he was trembling,” Geneve, 44, laughs so hard that I can hardly understand what she is saying, and I can also hear Lawrence cracking up in the background as she tells me about their first meeting.
It seems that Lawrence's sweat-soaked shirt didn’t bother her because she hugged him when they met.
“I was amazed she did,” he exclaims.
For Lawrence, Geneve seemed too good to be true. "Before we met in person, I would say to her, ‘I want to put my finger on your left shoulder to make sure you are real.’ That was the first thing I did after we hugged each other,” says Lawrence, 56, whose previous marriage was annulled in 2008.
She adds, “He did not feel like a stranger. I was like, ‘Wow, I've met my soulmate.’”
Any apprehension she had before meeting him dissipated instantly. Geneve, a single mother, had driven the two hours to meet Lawrence in Miami because she didn't want him to meet her son yet. “Even though everything was perfect over the phone, I was cautious. I wanted to make sure that he was the one before having him meet my family, particularly Randy, my 11-year-old son.”
Another reason she chose to meet elsewhere was that she didn’t want Randy to get his hopes up in case her relationship with Lawrence didn’t work out. “Randy was always asking me for a father,” she explains. “Then he would ask me for brothers and sisters. I had to be careful. I didn’t want him to become attached to someone that wasn’t the right person.”
Lawrence would help Randy with his homework over the phone
After meeting Lawrence in Miami, Geneve felt comfortable telling her son that she had met someone. “Randy was so happy.” He got to meet Lawrence over the phone. “Lawrence would call every night, and when I was traveling, he would help Randy with his homework over the phone.”
Randy couldn’t help but like his mom’s new boyfriend. “Lawrence is a very charming, calm, gentle, and kind person,” she says.
Lawrence adds, “It was important to me that Randy and I clicked, and we did. Randy is a good kid. Geneve raised him very well.”
A month later, in September, Geneve and her son flew to Boise to attend Lawrence’s son’s wedding.
A Boise surprise
Even though Lawrence had only known Geneve three months, he was sure that she was the one for him. Unbeknownst to Geneve, he had plans to propose.
After a dinner at a fancy restaurant, he brought her to a park in Boise; here, he pulled out a little box.
“I said what’s in that box?!” Geneve remembers. “It was a beautiful, silver cross necklace.”
She thought that was it, but then she looked up, and she saw a horse and carriage coming. “I said, ‘What’s going on?’ He said, ‘I am going to have you visit Boise in a horse and carriage.’”
The carriage driver told them the history of Boise as she drove. They ended up at Boise’s historic Union Pacific Depot, which overlooks the downtown.
Lawrence then took Geneve for a walk. With trees and water framing them, Lawrence got down on one knee and proposed to Geneve. “It was unbelievable. I was really shocked because I hadn’t expected anything more after he gave me the necklace.”
Too soon?
Geneve thought it might be too soon in their relationship for a proposal, but she said ‘yes’ because she felt like their relationship was more like a couple that had been dating for much longer. “It was like I knew him for 10 or 20 years ago. He knew me more than my mom or anyone else.”
Likewise, Lawrence was an open book to her. “Every day we’d spent hours and hours talking or texting. We never ran out of things to say to one another.”
Geneve shares that all of their conversations were interesting. This may be because they had a lot in common; they're both healthcare professionals (he’s a PA, and she’s a nurse), both have a great desire to help people, and both know what it’s like to raise a boy.
“Also, at that time, I wasn’t looking for the perfect person,” she says. (Lawrence’s uproarious laughter can be heard in the background.) “I know that there’s no perfect person. When I was young, I was expecting a prince. As I got older, it became all about the interior of the person. How easy is it for me to speak to the person, and how much we share in common. For me, it wasn’t about money or looks. It was about how well I connect with that person, and how important I am to him.”
Partners for life
Lawrence and Geneve were married at Holy Apostles Catholic Church in Meridian, Idaho by Deacon Desert, who like Geneve, is Haitian. “You can probably count maybe five Haitians living in Boise, and it was the Haitian deacon who married us,” Lawrence says.
Lawrence and Geneve are not only husband and wife; they are also business partners. They run a nonprofit clinic in Naples, Florida that they founded together. “We sold everything and dipped into our retirement to do this,” Lawrence says. “I think starting this clinic to treat the poor of the community is one reason why God brought us together.”
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