\n<\/p>\n
Jerald Jerard Creer and Kent Michael Williams chalk up the almost 15-year delay in becoming a couple to a struggle to communicate \u2014 one that had nothing to do with Mr. Creer\u2019s Deafness.<\/p>\n
Since June 2009, when the two met on a Carnival cruise ship, Mr. Williams had been texting Mr. Creer every few weeks asking for dates. Mr. Creer routinely turned him down. For years, Mr. Williams assumed it was because of his age. \u201cJerald told me when we met I was too young for him,\u201d Mr. Williams said. (Mr. Creer is seven years older.)<\/p>\n
The truth was more complicated.<\/p>\n
The friendship that Mr. Williams, now 42, and Mr. Creer, 49, struck up while sailing from Miami to the Bahamas had obstacles from the start. Mr. Williams, an engineer at Cox Communications then living in Baltimore, was traveling alone. Mr. Creer, a social worker, teacher for deaf people and actor then living in Suitland, Md., was vacationing with his boyfriend. Both were part of a group of L.G.B.T.Q. people of color vacationing together.<\/p>\n
Mr. Williams remembered seeing Mr. Creer outside the ship\u2019s nightclub a day or two into the trip and feeling drawn to him. \u201cHe\u2019s fine,\u201d he recalled thinking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
But he didn\u2019t know Mr. Creer was deaf, which resulted in a stilted conversation. Mr. Creer, who considers American Sign Language his first language, can read lips and make out sounds when wearing his hearing aids. But he struggles to decipher spoken words in dim lighting and loud environments.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom time to time, I don\u2019t know if my hearing counterparts are adjusting to being in conversation with me,\u201d he said of the stiltedness. That was the case with Mr. Williams. Then, there was the matter of Mr. Williams\u2019s social anxiety. \u201cI\u2019m shy and introverted,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m still trying to figure out why I would have gone up to Jerald in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Only two things were clear to both by the time the vacation was in the rearview mirror: One, each found the other attractive. And two, \u201cKent was very, very shy,\u201d Mr. Creer said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Creer grew up in Richmond, Va., with five younger siblings. His parents, Pamela Smith and Jared Creer, discovered his deafness before his first birthday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
By middle school, he was attending events for the deaf community in Rochester, N.Y., where he moved to attend a private school. There, he found his first deaf role models: Rosalie Rockwell, who was a teacher at the school, and her husband, Dale. Both have since died.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey told me about N.T.I.D.,\u201d he said \u2014 the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a college at Rochester Institute of Technology that trains deaf and hard of hearing students for tech careers, where Mr. Rockwell was a science professor.<\/p>\n
At first, Mr. Creer was skeptical: \u201cNo one in my family ever went to or finished college.\u201d<\/p>\n
But at N.T.I.D., where he enrolled as a scholarship student in 1994, the world opened up. \u201cI met deaf people of all races,\u201d he said. His freshman year, he joined the Ebony Club, a campus group for deaf Black students, but quit because he felt he wasn\u2019t intellectually on their level. Shirley J. Allen, a retired R.I.T. professor and the first Black deaf woman in the United States to earn a doctoral degree, pulled him aside and told him, \u201cDon\u2019t you ever give up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Mr. Creer earned two degrees from R.I.T., the first a bachelor\u2019s in his double major, social work and performing arts. Years later, he finished a master\u2019s degree in education. He now works as a drama and theater arts teacher at the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf in Clarkston, Ga.<\/p>\n
Mr. Williams grew up in Baltimore with his parents, Darlene Winslow and Kent Williams Sr., two younger half sisters and a cousin he considers a third sister. At 17, he started college at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Md., to study computer science. But at the time, he was struggling to come to terms with his sexuality. After a semester, he dropped out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI had attempted to kill myself,\u201d said Mr. Williams, who was raised Christian. \u201cGrowing up in the church, I thought I was going to hell anyway.\u201d (Mr. Creer said that he also attempted suicide during college for similar reasons and survived his depression with the help of his friends from theater, a creative outlet he had been pursuing since early childhood.) Instead of returning home to Baltimore, Mr. Williams moved to Dunnsville, Va., where his godmother lived. To support himself, he worked a series of retail jobs.<\/p>\n
In 2003, after three years in Virginia, he returned to Baltimore and got an apartment with a friend and eventually a customer service job at Verizon. By 2009, he was ready to return to college, later earning a bachelor\u2019s degree in information systems from the University of Maryland. In 2010, he moved to Atlanta.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The boyfriend Mr. Creer took the 2009 cruise with broke up with him shortly after they returned home to Maryland. Mr. Creer moved back to Rochester, where he started working as an ASL coach and teacher for deaf people. Heartbreak was nothing new to him, though for years he had tried to avoid it by dating older guys. Men his own age or younger \u201cjust wanted to play,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Williams made a promise to himself to keep in touch with Mr. Creer after the cruise, though the odds of an eventual romance, he knew, were against him. He didn\u2019t know ASL, and it was hard to keep up with Mr. Creer\u2019s relationship status. But he remained in the grips of an enormous crush. \u201cI never stopped being attracted to him,\u201d Mr. Williams said. \u201cI made it very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did so by texting Mr. Creer at least once a month, letting him know about travel plans and where and when he hoped they might be able to meet in person. Mr. Creer always answered, but usually with an excuse. \u201cHe would say, \u2018No, I don\u2019t think so, I can\u2019t take the time off,\u2019\u201d Mr. Williams said. \u201cI would say OK and continue to be cordial.\u201d But occasionally they did meet up in cities like Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Binge more Vows columns here<\/em><\/strong> and <\/em><\/strong>read all our wedding, relationship and divorce coverage here<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d meet him for a local event or for dinner at some restaurant,\u201d Mr. Williams said. Those visits sometimes turned romantic before they said good night. But Mr. Creer\u2019s pattern of declining his invitations would soon pick up where it left off. \u201cI figured, it is what it is,\u201d Mr. Williams said. \u201cYou enjoy what you can get sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In December 2023, Mr. Williams made plans to celebrate a friend\u2019s birthday in Manhattan and asked Mr. Creer to meet him there, not realizing that New York is one of Mr. Creer\u2019s favorite cities. In less than a day, Mr. Creer responded, \u201cI\u2019ll be there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, Oh my God, for real?\u201d Mr. Williams said. \u201cI was really happy.\u201d Nervous, too.<\/p>\n At the DoubleTree by Hilton in Times Square, the two stayed up all night playing a conversational card game that Mr. Creer had brought, the couples edition of (The And) card game.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was so thought-provoking,\u201d Mr. Creer said. \u201cWe answered questions like, What are you hesitating to tell me? What are you afraid of?\u201d Both say they fell in love that night. \u201cWe understood each other in ways we hadn\u2019t before,\u201d Mr. Creer added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n That weekend, Mr. Williams finally understood Mr. Creer\u2019s reluctance to accept his scores of invitations through the years. Mr. Creer\u2019s reservations about dating younger men were real. \u201cI was aiming for mature men who understood the struggle of life and who know what it takes to sustain a long-term relationship,\u201d Mr. Creer said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But there was something else, too. \u201cKent often goes on trips that I couldn\u2019t afford,\u201d he added. \u201cI was a social worker and was embarrassed that I couldn\u2019t go, either because of my schedule or because of money.\u201d<\/p>\n At the end of the New York birthday celebration, Mr. Williams was ready to carve a path forward as a couple. \u201c\u2018Are we dating exclusively?\u2019\u201d he asked Mr. Creer. \u201cJerald said, \u2018I think we should. I\u2019m going to make a point of investing in you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Two weeks later, in January 2024, they met in Manhattan a second time. In March, they traveled to London for a friend\u2019s wedding. By then, they were discussing living together in Atlanta. But not marriage. So it was a surprise when Mr. Creer proposed to Mr. Williams at the top of the London Eye Ferris wheel. \u201cIt was total disbelief,\u201d Mr. Williams said. His yes brought tears to both.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m deaf in a hearing world, and I\u2019m signing all the time, but Kent doesn\u2019t see me as different from anyone else,\u201d Mr. Creer said. \u201cI love his heart and his compassion and his generosity so much.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Williams added, \u201cI fell in love with how genuine he is, the heart that he has. He will do anything in his power to make someone else happy, even at the risk of making himself unhappy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In June, Mr. Creer moved into Mr. Williams\u2019s home in Atlanta. On Feb. 28, 115 guests gathered at Kimball Hall in Roswell, Ga., for their wedding, which was officiated by Romell Parks-Weekly, a friend, an L.G.B.T.Q. activist and a pastor at the Sanctuary, a Christian church in St. Louis. Both men were escorted down the aisle by their parents.<\/p>\n The ceremony included two ASL interpreters and a rendition of John Legend\u2019s \u201cAll of Me,\u201d both sung and signed for guests. Mr. Creer and Mr. Williams exchanged rings and promised to love each other \u201ctoday, tomorrow and forever.\u201d Once they were officially married, they jumped a broom decorated with ribbons and rhinestones into the first moments of that forever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When<\/strong> Feb. 28, 2025<\/p>\n Where<\/strong> Kimball Hall, Roswell, Ga.<\/p>\n Bliss and Harmony<\/strong> In the weeks leading up to the wedding, Mr. Creer took to Instagram to express his feelings about Mr. Williams in a series he called \u201cword of the day.\u201d Each day, he taught his followers a new word in ASL, including \u201cforever\u201d and \u201ccommitment.\u201d Mr. Williams, who avoids the camera because of his shyness, reluctantly agreed to be part of the \u201cromance\u201d post on Valentine\u2019s Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2026 And Comfort (Food) <\/strong>At a reception after the ceremony, guests helped themselves to a buffet with Southern favorites, including barbecued chicken, beef brisket sliders and mac and cheese. For dessert, after the grooms cut a small wedding cake, red velvet and chocolate cupcakes were passed around.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Bon Voyage<\/strong> The day after the wedding, the couple set sail on their second cruise together to the Caribbean. This time, they shared a cabin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nOn This Day<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n