Time is of no importance when love is involved. At least that’s the case with David Adamson and Wynelle Taylor.
The couple came under the spotlight last October when David pulled off a fairy tale proposal on the Chamberlain Bridge in The City after being in a relationship for 20 years.
EASY magazine sat down with the couple on the serene grounds of the Barbados Workers Union where Wynelle works, for an intimate interview to get some insight into their relationship and why it took David 20 years to pop the question.
But as David boldly stated, there’s a lot to tell before that question could be answered.
The couple met in 1997, when both attended a party at the Barbados Defence Force (BDF) headquarters.
“A mutual friend of ours [Claire] was celebrating her birthday. She invited me to go to BDF for a fete and that’s where I met him. He and Claire were speaking and I walked up, said hi to him, spoke to Claire and went back to my other friends. Then when the fete was finished and we were trying to figure out how to get home, he was driving, so he offered to take us home,” Wynelle recalled.
David was awestruck when he first saw her and couldn’t get the image of her out of his head.
“I first noticed her natural hair, complexion and her shape. I have a preference for ladies with natural hair because from the time I was growing up I was accustomed to seeing my mother do my sister’s hair in corkscrews and so on. On that night she had her hair in corkscrews. The way she dressed on that night was enough to capture my attention. The next move was made by me. I wanted to get her telephone number. I told them I need to speak with the young lady. About a week or so had passed and the thoughts were still lingering,” he explained.
Wynelle added, “My friend called me and asked if I remember the guy who dropped us home and I wanted to know why. I told him I wasn’t interested but I told him if he wanted to give him my number he could go ahead.”
But that meeting was the start of a situation that they were both unprepared for. For David, he was getting into a situation he never imagined he would be in.
“After the initial calls there was a period between there before the friendship started to blossom. It was that speculative period . . . . a period of uncertainty. The questions were, is this the right person and am I doing the right thing, which is natural when most relationships start. The frequency of the calls increased. And we would visit each other. That happened over a three-to-four month period. So it wasn’t like everything happened quickly.”
“Then I found out she was a mother of a young baby girl. I was around 24 and she was 21. I was made aware that the previous relationship had gone sour after the birth of her daughter. So I was now getting into something that was in turmoil.”
But it was a situation he couldn’t walk away from and felt compelled to stay.
“It touched a part of me that up to this day I cannot explain. I was there with her most nights when her daughter Nynoka started to cry. I would jump up and go feed her and take care of her and so on,” he said.
Wynelle, who was just listening in, spoke up at this point and praised David for being amazing with her daughter during that crucial time in her life.
“I remember his mum asking me at one point if I was sure the child wasn’t his because he was always there for her as a real father would have done. He was always bringing her pampers and taking her to doctor visits and didn’t tell me I had to reimburse him or anything like that . . . . He’s very protective of her, “she said.
David told EASY that while focusing on raising Nynoka together there wasn’t a lot of time to focus on a relationship per se.
“Some things though signalled the fact that we were an item, and as they say, the rest is history. There wasn’t a question for her to be my girlfriend. It was something we kept working at over time. I don’t think those words ever came out of my mouth because it was like we started to gel.”
Following that, a series of events took place, which David said contributed to him not making Wynelle his wife.
“We still faced many, many challenges but we got through them together. At one point we were both out of a job, then in 2007 I got ill for a while and she stood by me and took care of me. I didn’t know what was happening to me but she took care of me. She was my tower of strength,” he said.
So two decades together and three children of their own – Xavier, Davin and Jackson – David was finally ready to pop the question. But to answer the question on the minds of many as to what took him so long to marry the love of his life, David, being a very calculated person, said he wanted to be absolutely sure he had the right person before making such a serious commitment.
“It was my father’s dying wish that we got married. I looked at the attention that she paid to my father when he was on his sick bed. I saw something that I was impressed with. We were in the planning process for the wedding since 2001, four years after we met. But other things were important. It was put on the back burner but was still on top of the stove. As with all relationships you would have high points, low points and disagreements but there was always a constant refining.
“It came to a point where we knew for sure that we could do this thing. I wanted to be sure that I had the right person. Sometimes you can rest on your laurels when you are sure, but I was always sure. We were enjoying ourselves as a couple for every day of those 20 years. All along the loving was still good. It was good from night one,” he stressed. (DB)
