There had been dark days for 26-year-old, Julianna, of Ansonia, Connecticut.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t shake the grief of losing her grandfather, her struggle with depression was deepening, and episodes of anxiety became more frequent.\u00a0 Julianna eventually quit her job, remained at home, and isolated herself from the outside world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was losing interest in life<\/em>.\u00a0I had so much anger,\u201d<\/em> says Julianna. Yet, she felt the need to do her part to support the nearby families of the Sandy Hook elementary shooting.<\/p>\n \u201cFor as hard as it was for me to go out and be around people.\u201d <\/em>says Julianna, \u201cI knew that doing what I could for the families affected by this horrible tragedy is what I needed to do<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n On September 8, 2013, Julianna was once again doing her part by volunteering at a fundraiser for the Sandy Hook families.\u00a0 It was here, in Bethany, CT. that Julianna first met Scarlett Lewis, who was just beginning to spread the Choose Love message.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a mother who has gone through something so tragic,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>says Julianna,\u00a0\u201cand she is choosing love and spreading that, it\u2019s an inspiration. And she was so kind and filled with gratitude,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>continues Julianna, \u201cShe was thanking every volunteer and posing for pictures.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Little did Julianna know that earlier Scarlett, had also thanked an unassuming young volunteer firefighter named Ian, who had offered to assist with parking cars.<\/p>\n \u201cDoing service has been my life since I was a kid<\/em>,\u201d explains Ian, \u201cIt was my way of feeling connected<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Otherwise. I\u2019d pretty much given up on a social life<\/em>\u201d Ian adds, \u201cI really gave up on finding someone to love.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Once Ian had finished his car parking duties, he wandered the event and eventually made his way to a table where he said\u00a0hello<\/em>\u00a0to a friend, but instead of talking to his friend, Ian spent the entire afternoon speaking with a stranger.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said hello, and it was an immediate connection<\/em>,\u201d recalls Julianna.<\/p>\n There we hundreds of people there that day, music, games, people doing tricks on horses, activity everywhere, but Ian and Julianna felt they were somewhere else.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like we were the only ones,<\/em>\u201d says Ian, \u201clike everyone disappeared<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Julianna remembers, \u201cAs I was volunteering and giving back, I started to feel more love and meeting Ian just confirmed it for me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The next morning, Ian and Julianna continued their conversation by phone and then in person.<\/p>\n \u201cWe both had darkness in our lives; we had a lot of anger and isolated ourselves,<\/em>\u201d explains Julianna.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI didn\u2019t dwell on that,<\/em>\u201d Julianna continues,\u00a0\u201cI thought let me show him, love, let me show him how much he is loved, and we will go from there<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI just felt I had to be with her<\/em>,\u201d adds Ian, \u201cthat is all I wanted more time spent with her.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n From the first day they met, there was an instant connection.<\/p>\n For two people who had experienced so much hurt, opening their hearts to love would take courage.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t even scary,<\/em>\u201d says Julianna, \u201cthinking this is what it is like to meet your soulmate<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Three months later they were engaged,<\/p>\n \u201cWe just felt so right about it<\/em>,\u201d says Ian\u201d\u00a0there was no second-guessing or regrets. It was this is it, let\u2019s make this official.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And on May 20, 2014, eight-months from the day of their first meeting, Julianna and Ian were married at Lake George,\u00a0\u00a0New York.\u00a0 It was an intimate ceremony with close friends and family and an honored guest they had never met.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had so much gratitude for the spirit of Jesse being with us every step of the relationship,<\/em>\u201d says Julianna, \u201cthat we wanted him to be a very present force in the ceremony<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Julianna created a special ring box with Jesse in mind, \u201cOn the cover,<\/em>\u201d describes Julianna, \u201cthere was the<\/em>\u00a0special green and white ribbon and, on the bottom, \u00a0I wrote We Chose Love and Jesse\u2019s name.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Julianna added a special message on the bottom of their ring box, to honor Jesse\u2019s spirit.<\/p>\n Every guest also received a specially created mason jar with a butterfly design, and Jesse\u2019s name inscribed on one of the wings.<\/p>\n It was a beautiful, breezy afternoon, but before the day was over, there would be one more surprise guest.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was this butterfly,<\/em>\u201d recalls Missy, a guest at the wedding, \u201cYou really noticed this one butterfly flying around like it wasn\u2019t going to leave.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI felt something on my hand,<\/em>\u201d says Julianna, \u201cI looked down. and there was a butterfly just sitting on my left hand, near my ring finger\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI think Jesse saw how much I wanted to give back to the community during such a difficult time.\u201d <\/em>explains Julianna,\u00a0\u201cAnd maybe Jesse chose Ian for me, and me for Ian.\u00a0 Two broke people who found each other and decided to remove the darkness from their lives and Choose Love<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n The ceremony was complete, but Julianna and Ian felt there was still some unfinished business.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are quiet people and shun attention,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0explains Julianna, \u201cbut in our own way we wanted to shout from the rooftops what Choose Love has done for us.\u00a0 It was always on my mind to somehow let Scarlett know, but I didn\u2019t know how.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n It was a thought Julianna would carry with her for the next five-years.<\/p>\n November 29, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cMy Older son TJ, had asked for a Christmas tree,\u201d <\/em>says Scarlett, \u201cJesse was shot just eleven-days before Christmas 2012. I did not return to the house. I had my brothers go to my home, take down the tree, and donate all of Jesse\u2019s gifts.\u00a0 Since that day,\u201d explains Scarlett, \u201cwe haven\u2019t had a tree, and our entire living room had been neglected.\u00a0 This would be the year we would have a tree and get the living room Christmas ready<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Reupholstering some old chairs was on the check-list, and for the first time in fifteen-years Scarlett, walked into the local fabric store.<\/p>\n \u201cA lovely young woman was assisting me in looking at the different cloth<\/em>.\u201d recalls Scarlett, \u201cShe was very informative and patient.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until recently that Julianna felt well enough to go back to work, but by chance, she interviewed for and got the job at the fabric store in Newtown.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw her come in, and it was like wow,<\/em>\u201d says Julianna, \u201cand as much as I wanted Scarlett to know our story, I was also very concerned about telling her how the happiest day of my life was connected to the worst day of her life<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n It had been five years since their initial meeting at the \u201cChoose Love\u201d fundraiser and a lot had changed.<\/p>\n \u201cI was thinking this is Scarlett Lewi<\/em>s!\u201d explains Julianna, \u201cThe woman who has touched lives around the world and met so many influential people and I was intimidated.\u00a0 I thought I\u2019m just this stranger working in a fabric store.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n While browsing the aisles with Julianna, Scarlett paused to pick up a meaningful piece of fabric.<\/p>\n \u201cI was looking at some sweet fabric with angels on it, and I said, this would make for wonderful pillows because my son is an angel.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI looked at the shop assistant, and her hands were shaking,<\/em>\u201d says Scarlett, \u201cShe nodded with tears in her eyes and said, \u201cI know who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n Scarlett pulled Julianna into a warm hug.<\/p>\n From that moment, the story just began to tumble out along with a flood of tears.<\/p>\n Scarlett listened in awe as Julianna recalled meeting Ian at the fundraiser, how they honored Jesse\u2019s spirit during the wedding ceremony, and that if it weren\u2019t for Scarlett sharing Jesse\u2019s story and spreading the Choose Love message she and her husband would not have met.<\/p>\n \u201cScarlett was great,<\/em>\u201d says Julianna, \u201cShe told us that Lake George, where we got married, was special to Jesse too because they vacationed there every summer<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI just felt so filled up with love,<\/em>\u201d says Scarlett \u201cI\u2019ve seen Jesse bring so much love into people\u2019s lives and this is such a unique way, I\u2019ve never heard of someone getting married<\/em>,\u201d she exclaimed.<\/p>\n Scarlett dashed out to her car and returned with some belated wedding gifts.<\/p>\n \u201cJulianna, just felt like family,<\/em>\u201d says Scarlett, \u201cand I wanted to give her something.<\/em>\u201d \u201cShe gave me a little duckie with Jesse\u2019s name on it,<\/em>\u201d recalled Julianna, \u201cand what really took my breath away was the slate plaque engraved in Jesse\u2019s handwriting with the words \u201cHave a lot of fun,\u201d\u00a0 says Julianna,<\/em> \u201cI didn\u2019t know this was a message Jesse had left for his brother before he died<\/em>, but\u00a0what I do know is that, have a lot of fun, has been the motto for our marriage.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIan and I have started a new chapter in our lives,<\/em>\u201d explains Julianna, \u201cwe have conquered a lot of challenges, and I am always encouraging us to have a lot of fun.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cIf I were to meet the person I was before that day, we met Scarlett,\u2019 says Ian, \u201cI would not recognize myself.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like choose love is the best marriage counselor,\u201d adds Julianna<\/em><\/p>\n A few weeks after their first meeting in 2013, Ian and Julianna were looking through pictures on her Facebook page.\u00a0 Ian stopped on one picture and said to Juliann, \u201cDo you recognize anyone<\/em>?\u201d The picture was a selfie of Julianna and a friend at a hockey game, and in the background was Ian.\u00a0 Some other shared pictures and memories convinced Ian and Julianna they had been close enough to know each other yet remained strangers.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat this says to me<\/em>\u201d explains Julianna \u201cis that the perfect person can be in your world and until you get rid of your anger and fears to make room in your heart for love you may never meet<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Ian and Juliann have said, \u201cI do\u201d to Choose Love, today and every day, five-years and counting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I Do, Choose Love By Lisa Nee There had been dark days for 26-year-old, Julianna, of Ansonia, Connecticut.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t shake the grief of losing her grandfather, her struggle with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":89793,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,33],"tags":[16,62,12],"class_list":["post-89789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-news_post","tag-choose-love","tag-nurturing-healing-love","tag-scarlett-lewis"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.jesselewischooselove.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/i-do-pic-2-225x300.jpg\")
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