Now partners in all aspects of their lives

Turquoise McCray & Jared White

Sept. 5, 2021, in Philadelphia

Turquoise saw a friend sitting on her neighbor’s front step and went to say hello. “My friend introduced me to Jared, and it was like lightning, I got an instant shock,” she said. “That had never happened to me before and, honestly, it was not something I believed in.”

“I was intrigued by her, but I didn’t want to push too fast,” Jared said about those first moments in spring 2007. “I gave her a hint — an eye contact thing. My eyes were doing all the talking.”

A few days later, Jared got her number from their mutual friend and called Turquoise with a question both knew was an excuse.

“I asked her the question —- whatever it was -— and then pushed it aside and started a get-to-know-you conversation that lasted at least three hours,” he said.

“We talked until we fell asleep on the phone,” said Turquoise.

There were more phone calls, and grocery shopping together, and nature walks along Indian Creek in Morris Park. The sparks remained, but no one did anything about them for eight months, when Turquoise asked Jared to the movies. He said yes, then canceled at the last minute.

“A coworker backed up on my foot by accident and I had to go to the hospital,” said Jared, who is now 42.

Turquoise, who is now 32, was a little sad and a little doubtful. “I thought maybe he was making this up because he didn’t really want to go out with me.”

Then Jared asked her to dinner, and arrived wearing a big boot on his foot. They talked and laughed the whole time.

“I fell for her personality,” said Jared. “She’s very smart and ambitious. She’s funny. She speaks her mind. She’s spontaneous and kindhearted, and I saw all of those features on our first date.”

Turquoise knew right away that Jared would always keep her laughing and soon knew much more. “I felt safe and comfortable. What really drew me to him is that I could be me, he accepted me for me,” she said. “He’s really sweet and caring and loving, strong on the outside and inside, a teddy bear.”

The couple has three children. Jared, who is a security officer, has a son, Nafice, now 21, from a previous relationship. Turquoise, a medical assistant, also has a son from a previous relationship, Sincere, now 15. Together they have a daughter, Sanai, who is 9.

The couple has had breaks in their romance, but even then, Jared and Turquoise have remained friends and coparents, and have never stopped loving each other. They were on a break in 2018 when Turquoise ran into Jared’s dad. “He told me Jared had gone to the hospital for stomach pain. I dropped everything and drove to Lankenau. I went into the ER and found him doubled over.”

That night, doctors told him he had cancer. “Non-Hodgkin’s T-cell lymphoma, stage 4,” Jared said.

The diagnosis and the six months of three-days-a-week chemo that followed were something Jared knew he had to get through, for himself and the children. “But Turquoise was always there, asking how I was doing, making sure I was OK, bringing me things.”

After his last treatment on Oct. 10, 2018, he rang a special bell at the hospital. “Now, I feel great, healthy, and back to my normal self, three years into remission,” he said.

The couple parted for the last time the following spring, then began tentatively dating again in 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Sanai and Sincere were attending school online. Jared wanted to be with Turquoise and the kids — to support and protect them with all that was going on, including a COVID-related uptick in crime, and the two decided he could move in to the West Philadelphia home they still share. “There was nowhere we could go due to the pandemic, so we just spent time watching TV shows or movies,” Turquoise said.

By May 2020, the couple had a talk about something they had both realized: They had become partners in all aspects of their lives and it was working. “We’re really doing this. We’re really around each other all of the time and we are in a relationship,” Turquoise said. “I don’t want to put a title on this until it’s the title, but I really like where we’re at,” Jared agreed.

Against the backdrop of so many lives lost to the pandemic, they committed to doing whatever had to be done to keep from losing their relationship again. They would find a way to make it work.

Turquoise wasn’t feeling well one day in July 2020, and Jared encouraged her to spend the day resting in bed. “I’m going to run a couple of errands and will bring you something to eat,” he told her. She was watching TV when he returned, put her food on the dresser, took her hand, and began pulling her out of bed.

Why, Turquoise wanted to know, couldn’t he just bring the food to her? But then she was on her feet, and he was on his knee. “I’m thinking, ‘Is he going to propose to me with this soup?’ ”

She stopped wondering when she saw the tears in Jared’s eyes, and then streaming down his face. By the time he said, “I love you. Will you marry me?” she was crying, too. “Oh my goodness, yes. Yes.” Turquoise said. Jared put a ring on her finger and they hugged.

Daughter Sanai was in the room the whole time, playing Roadblock over FaceTime with her cousin, who wanted to know what the excitement was all about.

“Oh, my parents are getting engaged,” said Sanai nonchalantly.

The couple planned to wed on March 21, when they thought the pandemic would have eased to the point where the city could open again. Two weeks beforehand, with things not as open as anticipated, they made the difficult decision to call and text their 60 guests. “We were distraught at first, but then Frances [Jones, their wedding planner and Turquoise’s aunt] helped us move everything to September, and we love the fall, and we knew that by then, everyone would be vaccinated,” Turquoise said.

Fifty guests joined them for ceremony and reception at the Regal Ballroom, which had been decorated in cream, periwinkle, and silver. As Turquoise walked over petals and between the candles, hydrangeas, and roses that lined the aisle, she saw her friends and family around her and, best of all, Jared at the end. “It was just everything I wanted, everything I hoped,” she said. “It was ‘Finally, we’re here! I love you! We’re doing this today!’ ”

Her walk was also an incredible moment for Jared. “We were again making eye contact. I was locked in on her,” he said. “it was an incredible feeling.”

Brother-in-law Donnie Carey, pastor of Kingdom Harvest International Church in Camden, led them in their vows. Later, they danced to The Stylistics’ “You Make Me Feel Brand New.” Jared and Turquoise laughed the whole time.

After the wedding, the couple went for a cruise in the Bahamas. “It was super fun and very relaxing,” said Jared. “It was really nice to have that time with my new husband,” said Turquoise.