I AM SO SORRY KATHERINE.

I’VE MISSPELLED YOUR NAME ON YOUR LOVERS LOCK, FAILED TO NOTICE, LOCKED IT UP, AND THROWN AWAY THE KEY.

I ONLY NOTICED THE MISTAKE WHEN LOOKING AT THE PHOTOS.

AT LEAST I AM ONLY MARKING LOCKS, NOT FLESH.

I VOW TO GET BETTER AT THIS, I CAN’T KEEP SCREWING THESE UP.

SORRY, I HOPE YOU LIKE IT EVEN WITHOUT THE “E”

sigh…

This is a Lovers Lock. If you’d like to submit your own love story -and maybe have me create a personalized lock that will be added to Toronto’s Lover’s Fence- please read more about submitting here. Of course, you can always go and add your own. Toronto’s Lover’s Fence encloses Grange Park, the park behind the Art Gallery Of Ontario.

Katherine’s Love Story:

Ok…so where to start.

Spring 1999. I had come back from visiting a friend in the states and was secretly planning on leaving Canada and moving there. I had just gotten out of a tough time in my life, with which I didn’t feel I could share with my friends and family. My brother knew I was going to be going back to visit at the very least and he didn’t want me to go.

He had just started playing a game called Everquest on the computer, and with his best friend found out that a bunch of people they played with lived in Toronto as well. They had planned to meet and one of the friends was sending a group picture so my brother and his friend would know who to look for. I looked at one of the guys in the picture and remarked that he was pretty cute. I was then informed that he was either engaged, or recently broken up. I wasn’t bother by this as I was leaving Canada. Turns out he had broken up with his fiancé a while ago.

One time he called my place looking for my brother, and I answered the phone in French because I’m goofy like that. He next saw my brother at one of their gatherings (which was at the same time and place as my parents dart team meet), and said that he liked my voice. My brother thought he was talking about my older sister at first and then found out that it was me.

So my brother and his friend decided to try to set us up and get me to stay in Canada. I was still planning on leaving though. On my 19th birthday that June, we all went to one of my parents dart nights and that group of friends came along. With much coaxing I finally sat with my brother and friends and the guy and I really hit it off. Over the next few weeks we met at a goth club my brother started to attend. Eventually David asked me out.

We went on a couple of dates, and I told him that I was leaving. I really liked him, and he understood. He told me to go, and find myself and he’d still be here when I came back. He was very confident I would come back. I gave him a ring of mine before I left. I don’t know why I did, as we’d only been on a couple of dates….but I did.

After I arrived in Worchester, Mass. I called him and spoke with him on-line on almost a daily basis. On his end he spoke to his Mom about me and told her he was going to bring me home. A month went by of our constant chatting and I had fallen pretty hard, so had he. I informed my friend in the US that I was going home. I came home and Dave and I have been inseparable ever since. He wouldn’t give me my ring back though. Said it was his. Once we got married 7 years later, he finally gave it back, and I wear it with my wedding band.

So that’s my love story. Probably not going to be as grand as some of the ones you’ll get, but it’s special and important to me.

Thank you,

Katherine Keeling