On May 11, 2021 two strangers in the same state ended up listening to a comedy podcast on the Stereo App. Stereo is an app that let's people listen and interact with the hosts by leaving minute long comments. We all created avatars of ourselves and that was how people on Stereo saw us. The audience members could be from anywhere and we ended up realizing that we lived 20 minutes away from each other. Reggie was Mr. Bearitone, soulful singer and Lakisha was just LaLa. We had fun interacting and then the podcast stopped......

LaLa went on about her business, working at home and didn't notice for 2 weeks that Mr. Bearitone had been in her Instagram DMs.

I had never used my Instagram account and didn't have the app, so I never received notification that Bear was trying to contact me. As soon as I replied we started getting to know each other via text and video calls, which often ran into the wee hours of the night. Finally, on June 19, 2021 we had our first date and never went a day without talking to each other until February 19, 2022 when Bear had his kidney transplant surgery.

We had gotten the call for Reggie's transplant a few days before so I was not prepared for him not awaking until 4 days later on February 23rd. When he finally awoke, he was looking for me and I was able to finally hear the voice I had become so accustomed to hearing from throughout the day.

As Bear healed, we became closer and continued on the next chapter of our life.

Fast forward to April 9, 2023. It was Easter Sunday and Bear popped the question. It was one of the sweetest moments that was documented by a nice lady at one of our favorite lakes in Columbia MD.

In Fall 2023, we bought our first house together. We are working on making it our home.