We owe our meeting to our mutual interest in Rick Wakeman's music.

It was August 1998, and I was developing a webpage in honor of the 25th anniversary of the album The 6 Wives of Henry VIII.  I was looking for people with a nice way with words to offer their sincere comments about this album.  I was (and still am) on a mailing list for Rick Wakeman and was hoping to find someone there with just the right style of writing to round out that page.

Rick Wakeman had been in Los Angeles to work with Patrick Stewart, who was doing the narration for Rick's upcoming release Return to the Centre of the Earth.  Just after his arrival back home, he was stricken very ill, and some thought he may not survive.  The people on the mailing list were very concerned for Rick's well being and for his recovery.

I noticed one very sincere message sent by a woman from Brasil, who did not post to the list very often, so we weren't even friends.  I replied privately to this woman, expressing my appreciation for her wonderful way with sincere words and how she expressed my feelings exactly, regarding Rick's health and recovery.  I also asked her to write her comments on the 6 Wives album for my page, if she didn't mind .  She replied that she would, when she had the time.  We kept in casual contact for a while.

She did eventually write her commentary, which I posted on the page.  It came to be that she was also creating a webpage about Rick Wakeman, but in Portugues, for the Brasilians, for there are many Brasilians that love Rick and his music.  While she was putting everything together, I would offer some advice and just an honest second opinion about things she was doing. It was during this time that we began to become good friends. It soon became apparent that things were possibly going to go further, we both knew it, but it took some time to admit it to ourselves and each other. Perhaps it was the internet factor, and that we had never met in person.

I was living in Maine in the US and she was living in Rio de Janeiro Brasil, placing us 5,000 miles apart!  So, you can see we were beginning a very long distance relationship. Meanwhile, I had been planning to travel to London to see the world premier of Return to the Centre of the Earth. Since Rick had been so ill, the production of the CD had been pushed back 3 or 4 months.  For this, and I'm sure other reasons, the premier in London never happened.  Well, this left me with a chance to make a "plan B" in regards to my travel plans.

I decided to travel to Brasil. to meet the woman I had fallen in love with, Maria Lucia.  It was a fortunate opportunity, because if I had made my plans and reservations and committed to the London trip, I never would have been able to travel to Brasil, at least so soon.  That would have put our relationship in jeopardy, I think.

I bought my plane tickets for Brasil on Jan. 18, the very day of the 25th anniversary of Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and the proposed date for the Return premier.  A little irony there, I didn't really realize it until afterwards.  It was a nervous time before the trip, always wondering if this love affair was for real, we had to meet in person to know for sure.

Well, I arrived in Rio, and it was immediately obvious that our love was for real.  We had a wonderful first date, walking the sands of Copacabana beach and having dinner in a nice, but casual restaurant.  During the next few days, we visited some places in Rio, and visited another friend near Sao Paulo.  After we returned to Rio, we visited Sugarloaf Mountain, one of the famous landmarks in Rio.  It was a beautiful day, and it was while we were there that we realized we always wanted to be together.  By the end of the day, we knew we would be married some day.  The next day we bought a pair of rings, to be engraved, that signified our engagement.  Yes, we each had one, engraved with our initials and our engagement date. They are just like a typical wedding band.

I had to return to the US, my job, my family, and we planned for Lucia to visit sometime later in the year [it was April at the time].  She arrived in September and we wanted to make sure that living in the US would be something she could live with.  It isn't easy leaving your country, culture for another, even if you're in love.

We decided to marry before she had to depart back to Brasil, as her visa dictated.  My brother (a notary) performed the ceremony on October 27, 1999. About a week later, it was about 3 days before Lucia was to return to Brasil when we visited the immigration office.  They instructed us to have Lucia remain in the US while we process the immigration papers, and get a green card.  This is contrary to the advice we had read from "official sources" beforehand.

Lucia's family and friends were not able to attend this marriage ceremony, and since Lucia is a Catholic, a Catholic ceremony was planned, for Rio, in order for her to be married "in the church" and to have her friends and family present.  We married in the Catholic church on November 25, 2000. It was a wonderful experience.  A very special time in our lives.

In April 2001, we received a one page letter in the mail, written by Rick Wakeman.  Two friends of ours each had the opportunity during Rick's spring 2001 tour in Brasil to tell Rick our story. Rick acknowledged knowing about how we met and expressed his best wishes.

The letter -
http://www.geocities.com/rwbrasil2001/wakey/the_letter.jpg

On June 30, 2001 in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Canada, we went to the world premiere presentation of Rick Wakeman's Return to the Centre of the Earth, the very event whose delay 2 1/2 years earlier allowed our meeting in person.  It was a wonderful performance, and it was great to see Rick perform again.

After the show, we waited beside the stage, and finally got our chance to meet Rick for the first time!  It was a special time for both of us.  We mentioned that we were the couple that met [and eventually married] because of our interest in his music.  He seemed pleased to have met us and apologized for causing me so much trouble!  ((-:  We met Rick again, later, at the hotel Delta and chatted for a few minutes before taking the elevator together.  Our second meeting reaffirmed that Rick is a real person first, and a music celebrity second. It is this reason, above all, that it was an extreme pleasure meeting Rick Wakeman.