They sat side by side, each in a wheelchair, and held hands. Every now and then, they would tilt their heads, shift their bodies, look into each other’s eyes and smile.
I met Lauren and Mitch McKinney days earlier at a charity function. I remember they were holding hands then.
Before the night was over, I was invited to visit them in their new home, to see their lives as a committed couple, in hopes I would tell others.
Mitch, 40, and Lauren, 28, both have cerebral palsy. The neurological disorder has robbed them of all muscle coordination and intentional body movement.
They cannot speak in sentences and can only fully communicate through devices about the size of laptops. Mitch types messages with his left thumb. Lauren bumps with her chin a pad connected to her wheelchair that controls the cursor.
They exchanged vows Oct. 16 at Pinehurst Country Club before more than 250 people, a little more than a year after they were first introduced.
“Nineteen months ago mother told me of Mitch,” Lauren’s communicator says in a message she had crafted before my arrival. “She said we had a lot in common. I was hesitant. I didn’t want to be fixed up.”
The attraction was immediate.
Eight care providers tend to the couple around the clock. Kristen Hnida, 24, drove Lauren to her first date with Mitch. She could tell something had happened.
“You could look at them and tell almost immediately what universal love is,” she said. “When they looked at each other, it was pure joy.”
They moved into their Littleton townhouse about two weeks ago, the first time Lauren has lived away from her parents, Christy and Todd Blakely.
“I never thought I would see this day,” Christy Blakely said.
She and Todd purchased the townhome, and put it in Lauren’s name.
It is because Lauren and Mitch were not legally married. Doing so would have cost them at least half of the services, income and support they need to survive.
Instead, they had a commitment ceremony. The legality of their union does not matter to them. Lauren took Mitch’s last name, and wears his ring.
The couple show me around the townhouse, which has been renovated and retrofitted to meet their needs. They hold hands again.
And then they play for me the answers to questions I had submitted, answers Christy Blakely said took each of them “a good couple of hours to create.”
“Of course my life has improved,” Lauren said. “He not only ‘gets’ me, but he knows what it is like to be me.
“I have never lived with anyone but my parents, so it is different and a little scary for me. I am still getting used to it. The fact that Mitch and I found each other is special. We found our other half.”
Mitch cries.
“I was living alone, and I was pretty social,” he said, “but I was missing something. I never had a companion. And now I will always have someone to come home to.”
Christy Blakely cries.
It was difficult for all the people in that home not to cry. Everything in it was about new beginnings, the unpredictability of fate, the way love walks in when you least expect it.
I bade my goodbyes, patted Mitch on the knee and Lauren on the shoulder. She looked up at me to the screen in front of her.
It read “Thx.”
Thank you.
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
