Karen Kuzawa and Patrick SmithKaren Kuzawa and Patrick Smith met as pre-teens attending a school for kids with disabilities in Grand Rapids, Mich., but lost touch after she graduated from high school in 1976, two years before Smith, The Grand Rapids Press reports.
"I always had a crush on him, but never really told him," said Kuzawa of their school days. "So we were just friends passing in the halls."
In 2005, Smith, now 49, happened to run into Kuzawa, 51, at a restaurant he went to for lunch and their relationship re-ignited. They are to be married this August.
Both say they struggled with loneliness in the many years they were apart and are pleased they have found love and support in one another.
"The two of us are physically handicapped in some way, shape or form," said Smith, who has muscular dystrophy. "But nobody can do everything. The most normal guy on the street can't do some things."
Kuzawa uses a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy, but Smith says, "I look at her as a person, not a person in a wheelchair." She replies, "Thank you, honey."
