It was presumably the final place on earth Charlotte Phillips anticipated to seek out love.
In a small hospital in Delhi, India, her mom, Janet, was present process a last-resort remedy for her debilitating neurodegenerative illness. She was confined to a hospital mattress and the 2 were thousands of miles away from their home in the south of England.
“I’d been single for a long time, and my mom was really sick, so I wasn’t really in a headspace to meet anyone at all,” Charlotte tells NCS Travel at present.
The 12 months was 2009, and Charlotte was in her late 20s. She juggled caring for her mom with a job she cherished — modifying film previews.
Charlotte’s trailer work spanned genres, however she notably loved modifying collectively the advert for “The Holiday.” The 2006 Nancy Meyers film stars Cameron Diaz as an American film trailer editor who swaps lives with an English journalist performed by Kate Winslet and finally ends up falling in love with Jude Law’s character.
For Charlotte, it was surreal and thrilling to see her career on the massive display screen.
“It was definitely very meta,” says Charlotte. “Not a lot of people know the trailer industry even exists, so it was very fun to see a trailer editor as a lead character in a movie and it felt so special and serendipitous that I got to cut the trailer for it.”
But Charlotte’s life was about to take an much more meta — and serendipitous — flip.
Charlotte’s mom spent three months in the hospital in Delhi. When Charlotte arrived at her mom’s facet, she realized that Janet had met and taken a shine to a younger American affected person named Amy, who was there present process remedy for an ongoing bacterial an infection. Charlotte and Amy’s paths hadn’t crossed, however Charlotte’s mother stored hinting they ought to meet.
At this, Charlotte raised her eyebrows. She knew a matchmaking play when she noticed it.
“I was, like, super gay,” says Charlotte. “Out. Very comfortable being gay. Aware of my sexuality.”
Janet wholeheartedly supported her daughter, and was invested in her quest to seek out love. Charlotte knew that being confined to her hospital mattress wouldn’t cease her mom’s matchmaking mission. But she didn’t take the discuss of Amy too significantly — she undoubtedly wasn’t visiting her mom in a hospital in an try to seek out a girlfriend.
But then, in the future close to the tip of Charlotte’s go to, it occurred. She was strolling down the hospital hall into the physiotherapy room in the basement of the clinic. As she entered, she noticed a younger girl who turned towards her, smiling.
“I remember this really strong light on her, and just all I could really see was curly blonde hair and a huge smile,” Charlotte remembers. “I have a really strong memory of that.”
The girl stood up, nonetheless smiling, and launched herself as Amy. “Of course,” Charlotte thought to herself.
Her mother was proper.
“Instantly, it was like we’d known each other a long time,” says Charlotte. “We just clicked instantly.”
Even in that first dialog, Charlotte discovered herself eager about the romantic movies she spent her day modifying into 90-second trailers — the glances, the lightning bolt second, the chemistry.
“It was like in the movies, where you just feel a ‘click,’” says Charlotte. “You don’t think that really exists, but I guess it does. It was just a very instant connection.”
But at the same time as Charlotte felt drawn to Amy, she was struck by how surreal the second was.
“The circumstances of it, of meeting in this tiny hospital in India — I wasn’t in the head space for it at all. I didn’t think I had the head space for it. But then, I guess, you make space for things when they come to you, when they open up to you.”
Amy B. Scher was additionally thousands of miles from home when she crossed paths with Charlotte in Delhi.
First, of course, she met Charlotte’s mom. They were each sufferers in the hospital. Amy had traveled to India to get a specialist remedy for her ongoing an infection. Amy was alone and Charlotte’s mother Janet was heat and pleasant.
“Her mom kept saying, ‘You have to meet my daughter. You have to meet my daughter. My daughter is coming,’” Amy tells NCS Travel at present. “She was so excited.”
While Amy thought this enthusiasm was candy, she didn’t take any of it particularly significantly.
“I was just thinking as a 20-something-year-old, ‘Oh, I don’t want another friend.’ Every mom thinks you should be friends with their daughter, right?”
Plus, it appeared unlikely that a friendship with an English girl she briefly crossed paths with in a hospital in India would go anyplace. And Amy had different issues on her thoughts — she was making an attempt to rebuild her life again in the US after years of struggling by way of well being points and a current relationship breakdown.
When Charlotte’s mom talked about they ought to meet, the thought of romance didn’t remotely cross Amy’s thoughts. She’d by no means been in a relationship with a girl earlier than, and figured she was straight. Plus, romance — interval — was not prime of her agenda at that time in her life.
“I was not looking or expecting to meet anybody, especially at a hospital in India,” she says at present.
But when Amy and Charlotte ultimately crossed paths that day in the physiotherapy room, Amy instantly heard Charlotte’s mom’s phrases echo in her thoughts.
“Oh yeah, I see why I had to meet her daughter,” she thought.
Amy felt immediately linked to Charlotte. In their temporary dialog, it felt like they’d recognized one another for years. Without overthinking it, Amy spontaneously requested Charlotte if she wished to get dinner collectively.
“I was getting injections daily,” explains Amy. “Outside of that and the required physio most days, patients were free to go out if they felt well enough.”
So, the 2 made a plan for the next evening. Amy seemed ahead to all of it day, and then they dined, talked and laughed for hours. The day after that, Amy invited Charlotte to go sightseeing together with her in Delhi.
For Amy, this was out of character. Sure, she was outgoing and good at chatting to strangers, however it was uncommon she obtained near a buddy so shortly.
“I remember thinking, ‘Why do I want to keep asking her to go somewhere? I’ve been here a while. I’m perfectly comfortable going around Delhi by myself. Why do I keep wanting to hang out with her, or see her in the hospital?’”
In 2009, worldwide mobile phone information networks were much less linked, so Amy and Charlotte couldn’t textual content one another between face-to-face meetups. Instead, they would e-mail one another in the evenings, after their hangouts and Amy’s remedy.
“I remember I would send her an email, and then just keep refreshing,” remembers Amy. “Those were the days where you had to refresh 100 times to see if your email was coming, waiting for her to reply.”
When she didn’t hear from Charlotte straight away, Amy felt crushed. She stunned herself by the depth of her emotions.
“Why am I so eager to get her reply?” she thought to herself.
There were a few nights of soul looking out earlier than Amy had the conclusion.
“It took me a few days, because I had never had any interest in women before,” she says.
Then, one night, as she hit refresh on her laptop computer for the umpteenth time that evening, Amy had a second of sudden readability.
“I remember looking up and being like, ‘Oh my God, of course. Of course.’”
She appreciated Charlotte, Amy realized — as greater than a buddy.
Charlotte additionally had emotions for Amy. She’d been crushing onerous for the reason that day she’d seen her in the hospital, when Amy seemed to be glowing.
But neither girl voiced their emotions aloud.
“I remember we were sitting on the steps of the hospital, and she was showing me something on her phone, and I remember wanting to kiss her. I remember having that feeling, but I wouldn’t have said anything,” says Amy.
At that second, Amy’s inner monologue was abuzz with questions.
“Maybe she isn’t into me? If I were to do something, what would it be? Maybe she’ll do something? Maybe someone should say something? But no one’s saying anything.”
As for Charlotte, she knew Amy had by no means dated a girl earlier than. She might sense one thing between them, however she was cautious of misinterpreting their chemistry.
“You’re gay, and you’re flirting with someone who is straight. It’s unclear what’s happening, and if you’re feeling what you’re really feeling and sensing from the other person, or if you’re just a friend and you don’t want to cross the boundary,” she says.
So neither of them spoke their emotions for each other aloud. But they talked about nearly every little thing else. Charlotte confided in Amy about her fears for her mom’s well being. Amy talked about her well being struggles. She additionally instructed Charlotte about her personal mother and father again in the US, together with her dad, who’d lived with despair all through his life.
Amy and Charlotte felt comfy opening up to one another, and felt comforted, in flip, by one another’s help.
And the conversations weren’t at all times heavy. Their repartee was characterised by heaps of jokes, gentle ribbing and humor. Everything felt lighter when they were in one another’s firm.
“I think it was also like, ‘This is a really fun, light, amazing thing that’s happening in our lives at the time of all this darkness,’” remembers Charlotte.
Amy felt that being so far-off from home was serving to cement their connection.
“One of the things that’s so incredible about travel and so incredible about being pushed out of your comfort zone — whether it’s emotional, spiritual, physical, environmental — is really crazy, amazing miracles can happen,” she says at present.
Still, as Amy’s remedy got here to an finish and she ready to go home to the US, she figured this miracle could be a momentary one — a flash in the pan.
“Maybe it’s just going to be this amazing, four- or five-day experience in Delhi,” she remembers pondering.
Amy nonetheless hadn’t voiced her emotions to Charlotte. But proper earlier than Amy left, she left Charlotte a shock reward behind the hospital reception. It was surprising: a Sprite bottle label and cap, packaged into an envelope with Charlotte’s title written on the entrance.
When Charlotte opened it, she couldn’t cease smiling.
“Amy used to drink Sprite, and I used to drink Diet Coke a lot, and we had a little rivalry, we had a thing about it,” explains Charlotte.
Later, Charlotte gave Amy her Coke bottle label and cap in flip, to take home to the US. The trade was significant to them. Both girls knew it had extra layers than on first look.
“So that was how we told each other, I guess, through bottle caps,” says Amy, laughing. “Like we were in the ‘90s.”
Charlotte says she’ll always remember “the feeling of opening the envelope and seeing it and knowing that it meant she felt the same way I did — that we’d made a really deep connection in four days.”
But then Amy left for the US, with Charlotte’s bottle label in her pockets, however no precise emotions spoken aloud.
On her manner again to her home in Los Angeles, Amy had a 10-hour layover in Singapore. She didn’t care. It was an excuse to open her laptop computer and meet up with Charlotte.
“I remember I just sat and emailed with her the entire 10 hours,” says Amy.
“And then we got back and I remember we would be on the phone all day on Skype,” provides Charlotte, recalling how the video platform was the one technique to name abroad in that early social media period. “We stayed in touch continuously.”
Charlotte and Amy instructed one another they missed one another, however they nonetheless didn’t voice their emotions. Nevertheless, their actions indicated the depth of their connection.
“There were just these little, incremental hints as we were talking,” says Charlotte. “Awkward silences where we’d be smiling. Or we’d send songs to each other, and the songs would be romantic.”
Charlotte thought it was the correct factor for Amy to be the one to resolve when — or even when — to voice the emotions aloud, given Amy was ostensibly straight.
“I was excited to meet someone that I felt like I had a genuine connection with, but you don’t want to be an experiment in someone’s life,” Charlotte says.
And then, in the future, Amy urged they ought to strive and meet in particular person once more.
When Charlotte heard the phrases “meet up” come out of Amy’s mouth on the grainy Skype video name, she couldn’t fairly consider it.
“It’s really happening,” she thought.
When Amy proposed she and Charlotte ought to reunite, she was in LA and Charlotte was again in the UK. Some 5,000 miles stretched between them.
“We looked on a map, and halfway between London and LA was Boston,” says Amy. “So we decided to meet in Boston, which was completely nerve-wracking. I don’t know how I even ate for the days before, or did anything.”
Charlotte and Amy booked a lodge in Boston, purposely getting two rooms. It was nonetheless unclear what the go to was, or what it meant, or what it might be like when they noticed each other once more.
“But then, as soon as we met at the airport and we got in the cab, we’re holding hands,” remembers Charlotte.
When they reached the lodge, they kissed for the primary time. It felt, says Amy, “like everything was just as it was supposed to be.”
She was overcome by pleasure: “Feeling just so happy that we had finally gotten to that moment, that we were brave enough to see where the idea of us would lead, and that we were right about us, and each other, the whole time.”
“Then I called downstairs, and it was like, ‘Is there any way I could cancel my room, the second room?’” she remembers, laughing. “And they were like, ‘Sure.’ We probably aren’t the only ones who have done that.”
“And then we were meant to stay for five days. We stayed for eight. We extended,” provides Charlotte. “We had the best time.”
The days handed in a blur of lengthy walks, holding palms by the river, evenings out. Then all of a sudden Amy and Charlotte were saying goodbye on the airport, each in floods of tears.
They each knew they wished to strive and make a relationship work. But the lengthy distance appeared daunting. Charlotte’s mom was getting progressively sicker, so she couldn’t be away from her for lengthy. And Amy was juggling recovering from her personal well being points with supporting her father by way of his despair.
Still, a new sample emerged: “We just went back and forth as often as we could, for as long as we could. And then we would just talk on the phone and Skype or whatever it was, every day,” says Charlotte.
Charlotte’s job confined her largely to the UK, however it afforded her a first rate quantity of trip days, so she visited California at any time when she might. Meanwhile Amy was working in advertising and marketing in a freelance capability and had a bit extra flexibility, so typically she would go to London and keep so long as the vacationer visa allowed.
They frolicked with one another’s family members, obtained to know one another’s associates and household.
Naturally, Janet was delighted that her daughter had fallen for the American woman from the Delhi hospital.
“When I told her, ‘This is officially a thing.’ She was like, ‘Oh no, I knew,’” remembers Charlotte. “She loved it. She called herself a matchmaker.”
As for Amy, she was a little nervous about introducing her mother and father to Charlotte. While she had no motive to query that they’d be supportive — and she knew they’d love Charlotte — she figured they may also be a bit stunned, given she’d spent all of her 20s courting males.
“I told my dad first,” Amy remembers. “He was like, ‘Yeah, so what’s the big deal?’ It was so nice.”
It’s a second Amy will always remember. She felt a weight carry off her shoulders, reminded of her mother and father’ unconditional love.
“They were so welcoming and lovely,” says Charlotte of Amy’s household.
But irrespective of how a lot they loved their visits to at least one one other’s home international locations, or how lengthy Amy might swing staying in the UK, there was at all times one other airport goodbye on the horizon.
Often, as she traveled home after one other goodbye to Amy on the airport, Charlotte discovered herself pondering once more concerning the rom-com trailers she’d labored on through the years — the airport reunions and farewells, the tearful declarations of love.
“The irony of meeting the love of my life while traveling was not lost on me,” says Charlotte.
Amy was struck by the parallel, too.
“Charlotte’s worked on a lot of Nancy Meyers films, and worked on ‘The Holiday’ in which a film trailer editor ends up going to LA, this whole thing … And we were like ‘That’s what ended up happening to us.’ Because I lived in California and she lived in London. We were living the Nancy Meyers script,” she says.
“Very rom-com,” says Charlotte.
“Very rom-com,” agrees Amy.
But the 2 hadn’t fairly reached the rom-com joyful ending but. They each hoped — possibly even knew — it was ready. But they weren’t but certain how they’d get there.
While Charlotte and Amy were falling in love on successive journeys throughout the Atlantic, Charlotte’s mom’s sickness was worsening.
In 2010, Janet handed away. Charlotte was left heartbroken. Amy was additionally devastated. She knew how a lot Charlotte’s mother meant to her, and she credited Janet with getting them collectively in the primary place.
As Amy supported Charlotte by way of the early throes of grief — “She was everything I needed,” says Charlotte of Amy throughout this time — the 2 felt the craving for a life collectively, in the identical nation, much more acutely. From the outset, Charlotte transferring to the US had appeared the apparent selection. The hub of the filmmaking world is LA, in spite of everything. Her mom had tied her to the UK, and in the wake of her passing there was nothing actually stopping Charlotte transferring throughout the Atlantic.
Charlotte and Amy additionally talked about marriage. They knew it was one thing they wished, however it wasn’t a path to making sure Charlotte might keep in the US. In 2010, same-sex marriage was not but federally authorized in the US.
But Charlotte’s trailer pedigree stood her in good stead in LA, and she was shortly employed at a trailer home there. She obtained a visa to work in the US and moved into Amy’s home in Los Angeles.
“It was weird, because we’d been together, like, two years, but we hadn’t lived together,” remembers Charlotte. “But we don’t really fight, and I think we’ve always known we have something really special, and not to fall into that trap of getting into stupid fights. There were a few growing pains, but that was short lived, because we knew, big picture, how special this was.”
Delighted to lastly be collectively, residing in the identical place, Amy and Charlotte began planning a marriage ceremony in Massachusetts — partly as a result of this was one of solely a handful of US states that had legalized same-sex marriage on the time, and partly as a result of they’d first declared their emotions for one another in Boston. It appeared apt.
Amy’s father was going to officiate the marriage. The couple couldn’t wait. But in the lead as much as the marriage, Amy’s father took his personal life.
It was crushing, and Amy’s grief was all-consuming. But Charlotte was there for her, wholeheartedly and unreservedly.
“I broke down so many times. I’d often end up on the living room floor, looking at pictures of him, flipping through his old books, or listening to his records — and become hysterical crying. And she’d just sit down and hold me and say “I know, I know,” says Amy.
Amy knew, as Charlotte supported her by way of the grief, that she wished to go forward with the marriage, regardless of her current loss. Her brother supplied to officiate the ceremony in their father’s place.
“And so we got married,” says Charlotte.
“We were two parents down, but we made it,” says Amy. “And we had the most amazing wedding, even despite all of that.”
Amy says the pervading feeling on the marriage day was, “We did it.” She was emotional all through the day, however each time she checked out Charlotte she thought: “How did we end up with this fairytale? This is crazy.”
The day was bittersweet, as residing with grief at all times is. But at present Amy and Charlotte recommend navigating such loss in the early years of the connection taught them a lot about love, help and each other.
“Relationships are a make-or-break when times are tough,” says Charlotte. “You see how the other person reacts to stuff they’re going through, or stuff that you’re going through, and it’s a really good indication of how strong their relationship is, or not… We saw early on that we were a really good match for each other in tough times.”
And as they commemorated Amy’s father and Charlotte’s mom, they nonetheless reveled in being newlyweds, on the new chapter of their lives in California, collectively. The levity and enjoyable that outlined their relationship from the start was nonetheless current. They wished to be joyful, too — for his or her mother and father’ sake in addition to their very own.
“We still managed to have this amazing love story, and have so much fun, even though all of this was happening,” says Amy. “There was also a lot of joy at that time.”
Amy and Charlotte obtained married on October 1, 2011. A number of years in the past, they renewed their vows on a journey to Paris and Amy’s 80-year-old mom officiated the ceremony. The couple lately celebrated their 14-year-wedding anniversary.
“Not to brag, but all of our friends and family are like, ‘My god, you guys are still just as in love as you were then,’” says Amy, laughing. “We are genuinely happy. We say all the time, we’re the luckiest.”
The couple now dwell in New York City, the place they moved from LA a few years again. Charlotte’s nonetheless in the film trailer world, whereas Amy is a printed creator of a number of works of non-fiction.
The two take pleasure in watching one another succeed in their careers. They nonetheless spend a lot of time laughing and joking collectively. They take pleasure in watching rom-coms on their sofa — together with “The Holiday” — and reflecting on the parallels to their very own love story.
Still, the couple observe that in heaps of methods, they’re fairly completely different from each other. They have completely different pursuits, take pleasure in alternative ways of passing their time.
“I like video games…” begins Charlotte.
“And I do not,” intercuts Amy.
“And there’s a ton of stuff like that,” says Charlotte.
Their variations, the couple suggests, are complementary. And they’ve at all times been aligned on the significance of their love for one another.
“I think our values are in common,” says Charlotte. “It’s just really stuck with us, how lucky we are to have found each other, and how amazing we know our relationship is, and we don’t take it for granted. We’re very aware of it. We want to just keep it as special. And it’s not like a lot of work, it’s easy.”
When they speak about their love story at present, the couple can’t cease beaming, even some 16 years since their paths crossed in the Delhi hospital.
“Our love story is so amazing. I just feel so lucky,” says Charlotte. “I just think it’s unbelievable that it happened. Still unbelievable. Amy is my most favorite person in the world… Just being like, ‘Oh my god, I got to marry like the best person I ever met, this is insane.’ I’m so grateful for that.”
Today, Charlotte and Amy nonetheless have a good time Charlotte’s mom Janet as the proper matchmaker in essentially the most unlikely of locations. They nonetheless replicate again on the harder moments of their life that introduced them to the place they are at present. They nonetheless carry these Sprite and Coke labels in their wallets.
“If you can be in love in a hospital, this is really real,” says Amy. “She’s still my favorite person to do anything, anywhere in the world with.”
The couple additionally recommend their story illustrates the significance of embracing the unknown, and embracing happiness when it comes your manner, even when it’s surprising, or appears unlikely.
“It’s so important not to overanalyze or overthink things… I could have stopped myself, you could have stopped yourself,” says Amy to Charlotte at present.
“There’s a million factors in which we might have talked ourselves out of it. And I feel half of discovery in life and ending up the place you’re alleged to is to speak your self into the perfect might occur. We at all times leaned into the concept that we don’t know every little thing and the perfect might occur.
I feel that’s actually necessary with love and with journey… trusting your intestine and not trusting your worry. Your worry is unquestionably a liar. It’s simply making an attempt to only see what occurs. And I’m so glad that we noticed what occurred.”