‘THE BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD’
After months of painful separation, a postponed wedding and a cancer diagnosis, Sarah Campbell was finally reunited with her British fiancé
Sarah Campbell could finally breathe a sigh of relief when she saw her father’s Black Honda pull into their townhouse complex in Stratford, Ont., Saturday evening.
Under the dim street light, her fiancé, Jacob Taylor, hopped out of the car and the couple wrapped their arms around each other for five minutes straight, hugging tight to make sure the moment was real and no one would separate them again. Both were shivering from the cold and emotionally overwhelmed, with tears streaming down their faces.
“It’s just being together. It’s the best feeling in the world,” said Campbell, 25, who finally reunited with Taylor, 22, just two days after Ottawa eased its COVID-19 travel restrictions to allow unmarried but committed partners of Canadians, as well as international students and foreign nationals with a dying Canadian relative, to cross the border into this country.
“He’s right in front of me but it feels like he’s going to disappear again. It feels like a dream that I’m going to wake up and we’re still going to be apart. I’m still in a state of disbelief but in the best possible way.”
It’s been a long time — 245 days, to be precise — since the couple last saw each other in February, when he visited from the United Kingdom to propose to her and plan the wedding, originally scheduled for June. The two were introduced online last year by their mothers, who were close friends. Not only did their wedding plans go awry because of the pandemic, but Campbell was also diagnosed with thyroid cancer in early July.
On Saturday, she said she would have loved to be able to kiss Taylor, but a long hug outdoors, with their face masks on, was all that’s allowed as a result of her compromised immunity and his mandatory 14-day quarantine.
In fact, Campbell can only speak to Taylor and drop off food in a tray behind the door of his makeshift basement suite before he comes out of quarantine on Oct. 24. The following day, they will have the wedding her mom and friends are hastily putting together so he can accompany her as next of kin to her cancer treatment in November.
“Going through two surgeries without Jacob by my side was the worst experience I have ever had to face in my life. Nothing can quite describe how heart-wrenching it was,” said Campbell, choking back tears.
“The great and dark ‘indefinite’ separation threatened to tear me apart — physically, emotionally and mentally. I threw myself into advocacy work. When I didn’t have the strength to fight for myself, I fought for others.”
Campbell was part of the tireless grassroots campaign Faces of Advocacy , which began in May and was ultimately successful when Ottawa relaxed its border measures for further family reunification s this month.
Just minutes before those changes were announced in Ottawa on Oct. 2, Campbell got a call from Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino, telling her he was about to make an announcement that would make the couple very happy.
“It was Jacob’s birthday that day. We ended the call on a high note.
“Then the minister came on the television. I watched with tears streaming down my face as he announced the exemptions.
“We did it. We finally did it,” she recalled.
“And then he said my name. And Jacob’s name. I completely broke down. It was the best birthday gift for Jacob and a truly happy ending for us. That was a good day.”
The changes didn’t take effect until Thursday — and only then were the pre-authorization forms the couple needed made available on the Immigration Department’s website.
“We tried to figure out the exact process … My stomach twisted as I realized that if it didn’t come in on time, our careful plans for a wedding and Jacob being with me during treatment might fall apart,” said Campbell.
“There was confusion, uproar and chaos … scrambles to find notaries and figure out how exactly to submit this notarized form.”
The application was filed by 2 p.m. Thursday, but nothing happened. The following day, she desperately tweeted Mendicino, the Immigration Department and anyone she could think of.
Overcome by anxiety, she typed up emails cancelling their wedding plans, again. At 5 p.m.
Friday, she got an email from the local MP’s office, advising her to wait for another hour.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Taylor was waiting at his university campus in Bath, England, the only place he could print out the pre-authorization documents from the Canadian government. The approval finally came through around 6 p.m. — and he got on a flight to Canada Saturday morning.
“I was breathless with relief. It was like a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders. We fought so hard for this. I told Jacob, ‘I can’t believe it’s finally real,’ ” Campbell said.
“We share disbelief and excitement — and a lot of giggling on my part. It feels like Christmas morning — like I’m a kid all over again, ready for the best day of the year. Now, Jacob will be here. Now, I will have a knight in shining armour fighting the monster by my side.”