LOVE STORIES
Dreams in French meadow came true

By Tanya Bricking Leach
Advertiser Staff Writer

To Sabine Merckling's French friends, it sounded like a fairy tale. She met Scott Nelson on vacation. Absence made hearts grow fonder. Eddie Davis photo

Scott Nelson was the kind of guy who was unlucky in love. He had married once, but it ended badly when his wife abandoned him and their son. He took on the role of dedicated single father, and he wasn't looking for a woman to join them.

"I had been a single father for five years," he said, explaining his closeness with his son Travis, who just turned 13. "We were focused on each other."

Somehow Merckling worked her way into both of their hearts.

It started when she was on vacation. After her first two trips to Hawai'i, she and her girlfriends decided the next time, they'd bring their soulmates. When plans to go to South Africa fell through, she came back here, still without a soulmate. One day, her travel companion decided to rest her blistered feet while Merckling and another friend went to experience how people in Hawai'i worship. Merckling gazed out the window at Calvary by the Sea Lutheran Church and was mesmerized by the light dancing on the ocean.

She looked around and saw Nelson on the opposite side of the church, sitting there with two children, looking hypnotized by the water himself. She tried to concentrate on what the pastor was saying, but she was distracted, thinking about this man, assuming he was married, thinking about being 37 and wondering how long it would go on this way, never being attracted to the right men?

After the service, she stuck around to meet the pastor and also met Dave and Carol Nelson, visitors from California. Their son happened to be the one preoccupying Merckling's thoughts. Mrs. Nelson introduced her son to the future Mrs. Nelson. But Scott, a graduate student in counseling and guidance at the University of Hawai'i, had to get going to work with the youth group. His parents offered to take Merckling and her friend sightseeing. In the car, Carol mentioned her son's misfortune in love. He was, however, a lucky fisherman, and when they decided to get together that night for a cookout, Scott brought the fish.

He and Merckling hit it off, and by the end of the week, they were taking walks on the beach, just the way Merckling imagined in her dreams in the meadow.

The only problem was distance.

"When I took her to the airport, it wasn't a goodbye," Scott said. "It was 'until we meet again.' "

Merckling began composing her first letter to Scott when she was on the plane home last January. They e-mailed daily.

Soon, her family and her coworkers at an international engineering company all knew about Scott. They told her it sounded like a fairy tale.

"Our whole relationship is a 'pinch me' kind of deal," Scott said. Her family also knew she was heartsick without him. So her sister encouraged her to visit him in California when he was there last May. He showed her where he grew up.

Three months later, he visited her hometown. They went bike riding, and he asked her to show him her favorite meadow. That's where he proposed.

Merckling moved here, and they married Feb. 21 at the the Center for Hawaiian Studies at UH. They'll have a formal church ceremony Aug. 7 in Alsace. Their invitation ends with what they hope will be the story of their lives: "And they lived happily ever after."

Tanya Bricking Leach writes about relationships. If you'd like her to tell your love story next, send the details to tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or call her at 525-8026.