LOVE STORIES
Teen crush in church evolved into love, marriage
By Tanya Bricking Leach
Advertiser Staff Writer
Marissa Mahealani Ramos first noticed Benjamin Kama in church. The Kailua girl was in seventh grade, and the Waimanalo boy was a year older.
She was infatuated.
"Of course, I was too shy to talk to him," she said.
So, from a distance, the girl known as "Mahea" watched him and listened from the pews at Waimanalo Congregational Church.
"He could sing," she said. "It was so beautiful every time he sang."
Soon, Ramos' friends, aunties and cousins all knew she had a crush. And it was beginning to dawn on others at the church as well.
"When everyone was praying, they were the only ones praying with their eyes open, making eyes at each other," said Benjamin's mom, Colleen Kama.
By the time Ramos' family threw her a surprise sweet-16 birthday party, they knew just the boy to invite.
"I didn't even know the party was for her when I was invited," Benjamin Kama admits now. But fate intervened. "I had a crush on her, too," he said.
Ramos still remembers a teen-club trip to a movie when one of the leaders noticed them and predicted: "You're going to marry this guy."
Young love got serious when Ramos was a senior at Maryknoll School. Kama had just returned from basic training in the Army Reserves, and he would come and pick her up after school. One day, he was early.
"He was like, 'Babe, look at me,' " Ramos remembers. "When I turned around, he was down on one knee and he asked me to marry him."
Ramos accepted, but her parents were furious. She was only 17.
"They thought I was pregnant and I was going to drop out of school and I'd never go to college," she said. That was not the case. She wasn't pregnant, and she received a scholarship for the nursing program at Hawai'i Pacific University, and Kama decided to work at jobs such as landscaping to pay her way through school.
When she graduates in 2005, she plans to get a job and help pay his way through school.
He wants to be a high school teacher.
In January, they decided they had waited long enough to tie the knot. So, in just a few weeks, Kama made their wedding plans.
Benjamin Kama, 22, and his 20-year-old bride wed March 20 at the Kalihi church where his dad grew up. A lu'au-style reception followed at Kama's family home in Waimanalo for about 300 guests. ("It was small, just family," the bride said. "Big family," the groom added.)
The bride is now Marissa Mahealani Kama. And the voice that first captured her heart is a big memory from her wedding. Her groom sang to her as she walked down the aisle to the tune of a love song his mother wrote for her own wedding. It was one of the first songs he sang to her when they courted, and he changed the words to fit.
The song made for some tears of joy, even for Kama himself.
"He cried like a baby," Marissa said. She couldn't have asked for anything sweeter.
Tanya Bricking Leach writes about relationships for The Advertiser. If you'd like her to tell your love story next, send the details to tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or call her at 525-8026.
