You walked past him a 100 times rushing to your room…to the beach…to get a drink. He was that man in the green overalls, down in the earth of Jamaica turning it with his hands.

That landscaping that made you ohhh and ahhh, he did it. You maybe glanced at the flora and said, “wonder why it doesn’t look like this back home?” He did it.

He makes little to nothing, this property is not his, but he nurtures it and cares for it and does a great job, because it is a matter of pride. He will never ever in his life own a piece of this property, but every flower that blossoms does so with his help.

He smiled as she walked by, he smiles at everyone. She rushed on by to the bar…looking for her family. He spoke, he smiled, she passed him by.

Somewhere during the second trip, he smiled, he spoke, he did not let her pass him by. He MADE her stop, he made her talk, he made her notice him. She passed on by.

His promises to call were not idle. He called every day…he paid for the calls. No “I am on someone phone, write dese numba down and call me bok” No “I have little kredick in de phone, call me back.” He was a man, calling his lady; he never troubled her with these things.

When he would call all you could hear was laughter coming from her room. Laughter that came from deep down within and escaped from her lips like a long held prisoner. How long had it been since her mother heard her laugh so…did she ever really laugh like this before?

He never stopped calling, never gave up. She returned…and when she did, he had gotten to her room before she arrived. He cleaned the entire place until it was immaculate. The owner had had a lady to do this, but it wasn’t clean enough for him…not for her.

The entire room was filled with flowers everywhere. Flowers that he had grown with the same hands he used to caress her, rub her back, and loving dry her off with towels after she showered. But you passed him by.

As she got to know him, he had character, a good family, children who love him, and their mother gives him credit for being a good man and father, no drama there. He has a small home on land that is his. It is clean, modest, and well kept. How could you have known that by Jamaican standards, he is a man of means…but you passed him by.

She did not pass him by…she settled down…focused…assessed. She looked at where she was in life, and what was ahead of her, and took a plunge deep into the Caribbean Sea and came up with a pearl. She decided that if you think long…you think wrong.

So she did not pass him by. Last week, they married. It is the chance of a lifetime, and a lifetime to love. I talked to her. I’ve made wedding cakes since 1975 and have been involved with hundreds of brides, but never have I heard such pure joy. She almost came through the phone.

He is a man that many of us would never think twice about. She did not step over him on the way to the bar…she stepped over the broom with him, and for her I see…love, life, and Jamaica