My decision to move to San Francisco in March of 2008 started the ball rolling on a series of events which finally led me to marrying my wife, Ruheene, earlier this year on the 24th of Feb 2012. Over the last 4 years, inspite of living within a 2 block radius of each other (her work place was 2 blocks from my previous apartment) and in all probability walking by each other several times, it took shaadi.com (an Indian online dating website) to finally bring us to meet each other. The story of how we met and ended up marrying each other could write the script to an alternate universe version of a popular TV show - ?How I Almost Never Met Your Mother?. From refusing to extend my contract for Holden (Melbourne) in 2005 to almost accepting an offer from an IT firm in Delhi to packing up and moving to Australia in 2010 only to come back to San Francisco 10 days later, to being stuck in India for a couple of months and almost losing my work contract here in San Francisco; any of these moments could have gone the other way and I would have never met my wife. Funnily enough, when we finally did sign up for Shaadi.com I sent her an ?expression of interest? in January of 2011 & she replied with ?Thanks but no thanks!?; she was dating someone else at the point. As fate would have it things did not work out between them and when I pinged her again (she had joined back with a new profile) later in the year (November 2011) she finally did accept my interest. I was in India at the time, celebrating my best friend getting married and so we started our interactions over email and chat (God Bless the Internet). I came back to San Francisco on the 2nd of December 2011 and we decided that the evening of 10th Dec sounded like a perfectly nice time to finally meet. Ruheene?s mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer 11 years ago and had fought her way back through chemo & surgery & a healthy dollop of ?You don?t scare me? attitude. Unfortunately, the cancer returned 5 years ago and by the time they realized, it had already spread to her bones. After years of being dormant, around the time we first started chatting on email, her mom?s condition started to get worse and by the time we met she needed a walker to get around. Ruheene was helping her mom bathe & clean up, the evening of 10th Dec and ended up reaching the place 45 minutes late (she was sweet enough to call me a few times and apologize for being stuck in traffic). As a rule I never wait more than 10 minutes for anyone, but I have no idea why I stayed put for 45 minutes. When she came I expected the meeting to last at least 30 minutes, hopefully a lot more. Now I am a bit of an introvert when I meet someone for the first time, more so around people I?m attracted to. She being the social outgoing person she is, did most of the talking and took my shyness as a sign that I wasn?t interested. During the 15 minutes that we met for I brought up the point that I was closer to a teetotaler than an occasional drinker. So when she told me that she had plans to get a drink with a few friends and that I was welcome to join her, I took that as her telling me ?I don?t think it?s going to work out between us?. So I made a lame excuse of having to get back to cook for my sick friend and she dropped me home. I sent her a text that night thanking her for the short but sweet evening not really expecting anything out of it. The next day at work I saw her online and we started chatting and decided to meet for drinks that night and possibly a Salsa dance lesson the next evening. A couple of months later I found out that she had put me in the ?Friend Zone? after our first meeting and didn?t expect anything to happen between us but the fact that I still came & successfully made a royal fool of myself trying to impress her at the Salsa class even though I had told her that ?I have two left feet? was an understatement to my dancing abilities was a big reason why she let me out of the dreaded friend zone. We met a couple of more times in the next week but it was the week of Christmas through New year?s that we really ended up spending a lot of time together. By this point my parents thought I had had enough time to ?decide? if I wanted to marry her. My grandma has been sick for a few years now and needs dialysis twice a week. As much as everyone wanted her to be there and enjoy seeing me getting married, I?d always thought that meeting a few times would not be enough to know the person to make the big decision. Everyone tends to put their best foot forward during the initial interaction and its pretty much next to impossible to get to know the real them. I?ve always thought that I?d need to be with a person for atleast a year before I would be able to make that decision. Around the 2nd week of January 2012, Ruheene?s mom?s condition spiraled down drastically and she had to be admitted to the hospital where she was told that cancer had spread pretty much everywhere and that she had at most 3 months to live. She was at the hospital for a week and Ruheene spent all of her time there taking care of her. With a stage 4 cancer patient even though you expect the inevitable I don?t think there?s anything that can prepare you to hear your mom has only 3 months to live. I saw Ruheene & her mom every day that week, trying to lift her spirits whatever little I could. That week in the hospital, as unfortunate and intense it was, gave me everything I needed to decide I wanted to marry this woman. The way she handled the emotional, mental and physical stress of that week, the inner strength that she exuded, the calmness in the way she handled her mom, visiting relatives & the doctors through this extremely trying time told me everything I needed to know about her, everything I needed to fall in love with her. Once her mom was discharged and came back to her apartment we discussed the option of getting married quickly so both her mom and my grandma would be able to see our wedding. Ruheene is a very selfless person and true to her nature the first thing she told me was that she did not want me to feel pressured to get married quickly just for her mom. She said she wanted me to take as much time as I needed to make the decision. I told her that seeing her that week had helped me make the decision. At this point we spoke to our parents and it was decided to have 2 wedding ceremonies ? one in San Francisco & the second one in New Delhi so both her mom & my grandma could be part of our new lives. We ended up having a Sikh ceremony in San Francisco on the 24th of Feb 2012 and then flew to New Delhi a couple of weeks later to have an extended Punjabi wedding week ending in the 2nd wedding ceremony on the 22nd of March 2012. At the time we decide to get married I was living with one of my best friend?s and the urgency of the situation didn?t leave us with anytime to find an apartment of our own. So being happily married twice to each other we returned to San Francisco and back into my old apartment with a roommate. Ruheene has her own apartment in San Francisco where her parents were staying. We spent the next 4 months spending most of our evenings with her mom, taking care of her & coming back to my old apartment at night. During this time her mom went through 2 blood transfusions to help her system cope with the cancer. After the 2nd transfusion we were told by the hospice team that the next one might be the last one; that her heart wasn?t strong enough and at some point we had to take a decision on letting her go. Unfortunately, the 2nd one turned out to be the last one and she passed away on the 10th of July 2012. During the 6 months that I knew her I came to love and respect Ruheene?s mom as my own & I?m infinitely glad that we decided to get married early. I saw Ruheene play the mother to her own mom over those 6 months; taking care of all her needs ? cooking for her, helping her wash, sitting and talking with her, helping her transition from this world to the other. All I can say is that I?m blessed and lucky to have her as my life partner, my best friend, my wife. Everyone says that the life for newlyweds is a bed of roses and it?s all smiles and joy and is a time to just spend with each other getting to know each other. While our circumstances were different I can honestly say that nothing could have bonded us more deeply, nothing could have brought us closer and value each other more than the experience we?ve gone through together. Losing a parent & having a new relationship start at the same time can be an intense experience which can either make or break you. We have come out much stronger, knowing that the bond we share, the love we feel will last us a lifetime.