LOVE STORIES
They found the 'hard road' most fulfilling

By Tanya Bricking Leach
Advertiser Staff Writer

Deployments, illness and other hardships nearly broke up Charmette and Tim Turner, but they say they're stronger for sticking together. Family photo

"Everything I could have wanted for my wedding," she said. "That was it."

The perfect package included eight bridesmaids, an incredible reception and 200 guests who traveled from around the world to see her tie the knot in Casper, Wyo.

It happened nine years ago yesterday. One day before that, she admitted to her father that maybe she just liked the idea of getting married.

Her father replied that everything was paid for and there would be a wedding the next day — or there would be a funeral.

So the show went on. And Charmette Jackson became Charmette Turner, wife of Tim, and all smiles.

But this isn't really about that.

Their love story is really about what's happened since.

"Hell and back," is one way Charmette describes it.

At first, their marriage was wonderful. They bought a house and had a daughter, Jessie.

But two years into the marriage, Charmette's father was diagnosed with lung cancer, and Tim, who works on an Army boat, was deployed to South America. He couldn't be there for her after her father died that summer, and she resented him for it.

Christmas came, and Tim was still gone. Charmette started thinking this wasn't the kind of life she wanted, one of missed birthdays, Mother's Days, births and funerals. "When he got back, I told him I didn't know if I could do this," she said. "Tim came back to a mom and a daddy's girl whose daddy was gone."

The situation continued until things got worse.

In the summer of 1999, Charmette underwent surgery to remove an ovarian cyst. But complications led to an infection and six more surgeries in the past five years. Tim stuck by her side through it all.

"When you think you're going to lose somebody, it just really puts you in touch with what that person means to you," he said. "And I think that strengthened us both."

When he had to sail for his job, he'd tell her she'd better be there when he got back. He never wanted to lose her. He wanted her to stay strong for them.

Somewhere along the way, Charmette Turner realized why she married this man.

But back when a friend introduced them years ago, Charmette thought Tim was a cocky, self-sufficient man from Alaska. And he thought she was a spoiled girl from Wyoming. Race was the least of their differences.

"We could not stand each other," she recalls. "I mean literally. He thought I was a stuck-up, high-maintenance snob, and I thought he was an overconfident, self-centered jock."

When they met again a while later, after Charmette went through a bad breakup, Tim consoled her and showed her how to love again. They dated and stuck it out while Tim was sent to Haiti in 1994. He proposed the day after he got back. She started making wedding plans.

"My wedding was about my dress and my flowers and my eight bridesmaids," she said. "But I had to grow up."

Charmette, a stay-at-home mom and an avid reader of "Love Stories," wrote recently to say that she liked reading tales about people that made her feel "warm and fuzzy," but that love stories encompass a lot more emotions — even when the stories are of ordinary people approaching what others might consider an insignificant anniversary. The message is still one that people blinded by "wedded bliss" need to hear: Marriage is hard.

"People just seem to be getting divorced like it's going out of style," she said. "My marriage has by no means been a marriage that didn't have any downs."

But the Turners, both 35, are an example of people who worked it out and are stronger for it.

"It's easier to give up than it is to stick it out," Tim said. "We stood on the edge of divorce. It pays off to take the hard road rather than to just give up."

For them, marriage became about sticking it out, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.

"If someone had told me on our wedding day that the love I felt then would increase tenfold every year after, I would have said, 'No way.' "Char said. "I also would have been wrong."

So, on this weekend of their ninth anniversary, Tim surprised Char with a dinner cruise on the Star of Honolulu and signed them up for salsa and ballroom dance lessons. This is the fourth of their nine anniversaries that they have actually been together for the occasion.

This time around, they really have something to celebrate.

Tanya Bricking Leach writes about relationships. If you'd like her to tell your love story next, write to tleach@honoluluadvertiser.com, call 525-8026 or mail your photo and details to Love Stories, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802.