‘We’re going to be together forever’

Sandy’s friends kept saying that she needed to meet Lisa, their new-to-Chicago accountant friend. Sandy didn’t give it much thought — how could she, a FedEx truck driver who generally is in bed by 7 p.m. to start work at 2 a.m., possibly meet anyone with a normal schedule?

But on Good Friday 2007, Sandy was up late, for her, hanging out at the neighborhood bar owned by her friend, Marge. The door swung open and a redhead walked in. “We locked eyes and I thought, ‘Huh. I wonder if this is Lisa?’ " Sandy remembered. “There was something about her eyes that was amazing. At the time, I did not think it was love at first sight. But now, yeah, I think it was.”

For Lisa, home was still in Northeast Philadelphia, where her children and family lived and where she planned to return within the year ― as soon as she completed a temporary gig at her brother’s business. She and a friend had Good Friday church service plans and were meeting at the bar.

“When I opened the door, Sandy was the first person I saw,” said Lisa. Before she knew it, Marge was saying Lisa should take her place in the board game she was playing with Sandy so she could wait on some customers. Yes, this was a conspiracy.

Sandy and Lisa chatted for 15 minutes, then Lisa left for church.

The next day, Lisa and some friends drove to Kenosha, Wis., to fly kites and tour the Jelly Belly Candy Co. Back in Chicago, Lisa just wanted to sleep. But Deb — the friend who had taken her to church — texted that she better get to the bar for karaoke. Lisa arrived to find Sandy and their mutual friend group sharing an unusually flavored collection of Jelly Bellies purchased on the road trip. “One was vomit,” Sandy remembers. “It was disgusting — exactly like vomit! Lisa sits next to me and I turn to her with the box of jelly beans.”

“The first thing she said to me is, ‘Have you tried the vomit?’ She had me laughing from that point on,” remembered Lisa. “I thought anyone who could make me laugh this much had to be a keeper.”

Their friends noticed what was happening. “They were hovering around waiting for me to ask her out so they could break out the streamers,” said Sandy. What they didn’t know: Sandy had already asked Lisa via their private text conversation. Lisa said yes, and Sandy promised to call to work out the details. When the group decided to go to a dance club, Lisa opened her car’s hatch to toss her coat in, revealing a case of water, a big tub of cat litter, and other heavy stuff. She lived on the third floor and was waiting for her brother’s friend to carry it up for her, she explained.

Early Easter morning, Sandy called Lisa and offered to carry everything from the car to her condo. After the heavy lifting, the women talked. Sandy was expected at an Easter gathering at the home of her ex. Lisa was supposed to go to church with Deb and Mel, then pick up a woman she had been seeing for an Easter celebration at her brother’s house.

“My phone was ringing off the hook,” said Lisa, who ignored it. Then Mel started calling Sandy, who eventually picked up. No one could find Lisa, Mel said, and they were worried. “Listen, this is not what you think,” said Sandy, before handing her phone to Lisa.

Despite their obvious connection, Lisa had a warning for Sandy: “You know I have kids at home. I have a life at home. It’s probably wise not to get attached.”

But Lisa was falling hard, too. She and Sandy both canceled their Easter plans to spend the day together. “I know this is really awful,” Lisa told the woman she was no longer taking to Easter dinner, “but I just met the love of my life.”

Three months after they met, Lisa broke her leg and could not manage the stairs to her condo. Sandy suggested she move in to her single-story home, but Lisa said it was too soon. Sandy offered plan B: a home swap. For a few weeks, she slept at Lisa’s place and took care of the cats she was babysitting, but otherwise hung out with Lisa and dogs Lulu and Doc at her home. It got old. Sandy showed up at her own home with the cats. “I told Lisa, ‘You know we’re going to be together forever — what difference does it make?’ ”

In 2008, Lisa had an allergic reaction that landed her in the hospital. All the questions Sandy had to answer before seeing her was frustrating. “I had been married to a man for 17 years, and never once did anyone ask for any form of documentation for anything,” Lisa said. At the time, the couple could not legally marry, but after Lisa was discharged, they filed paperwork granting each other the legal rights that married couples get automatically.

On April 7, 2009, Lisa, who is now 62, and Sandy, now 58, had a commitment ceremony at Lisa’s church. Lisa’s children were her attendants and Sandy’s sisters were hers. While not legally binding, it was an otherwise traditional Christian wedding ceremony.

Two months later, as the couple was traveling to Provincetown, Mass., Sandy read a things-to-do list. “Hey! We can get legally married in Provincetown,” she told Lisa. It takes three days to get a marriage license and they would only be in town for four, so they applied for the license the minute they got to town. On June 11, the last full day of their vacation, their officiant rode up on his bicycle and married them in the garden of their bed and breakfast. The couple celebrates both anniversaries.

Not long after they became a couple, Sandy told Lisa she would happily follow her home to Philadelphia — or anywhere. They were together a year when they decided it was time to go, but then the economy collapsed. In 2011, Sandy learned that FedEx had granted her transfer to Philadelphia. “I moved in with Lisa’s daughter and her [now] son-in-law. For nearly a year, Lisa still lived in Chicago and we commuted back and forth.”

Then Lisa finally came home and went back to her favorite kind of accounting, with nonprofits. She is now director of accounting and human resources at Variety — the Children’s Charity of the Delaware Valley.

The couple still live in Northeast Philadelphia, now with dog Sabrina. They’ve traveled to many countries, but say nothing beats a good road trip — shortish ones to New York for the musical theater they both adore and longer ones, such as a trip to South Dakota, which Sandy says is “seriously, underratedly beautiful.”

Sandy and Lisa also love spending time with their family — daughter, son, their spouses, and two grandsons, 8 and 5, who call Lisa GiGi and Sandy GeGe. With the boys, they play video games and board games and take excursions to places like the zoo and camping and Grounds for Sculpture — which the kids adored.

“I love that she’s really caring, and how much she cares about our families,” Sandy said of Lisa. “She is a very loving person, and very affectionate.”

Sandy still keeps her laughing, Lisa said. She can fix anything. And she is a kind and gentle person to humans and nonhumans alike. “She has all kinds of animal food in her trunk because she feeds animals on the way to work,” Lisa said. “The other day she stopped her truck in the middle of the road to move a turtle.”

Sandy’s truck is a tractor trailer and the turtle she carried to the grass was a big snapper. “I put my hazards on,” said Sandy, nonchalantly.

Lisa, the family planner, is working out details for a road trip to Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.