I was born way back in 1956, Jerome Irwin Gardner, in the tiny town of Walterboro, South Carolina, population about 5,000. In those days, most people I knew never ventured very far from home. But I was a small boy with some very big ideas.
By the age of fifteen, I already had a fairly clear picture of what I wanted from life. I wanted to become a dentist. I wanted to own a Corvette. I wanted to be an artist. And somewhere, somehow, I knew there was another part of my life waiting for me.
Growing up in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, I also understood that my life was going to be a little different. Even then, I had this idea that somewhere in this enormous world there was a person who would be my “twin,” someone I was meant to find. And for some reason, in my imagination, there was always water nearby.
At first, I tried to find Mrs. Right, until I finally understood that what I was actually looking for was Mr. Right. Unfortunately, before finding Mr. Right, I managed to spend thirteen years with Mr. Wrong. By 1996, that chapter of my life was ending. Then my best friend came to me with an idea: “Let’s go to Mykonos, Greece.”
The 1996 Summer Olympics were coming to Atlanta, and because of the disruption surrounding the Games, we needed to close our offices for twenty-one days. For me, this was almost unheard of. I had always been a nine-to-five workhorse. Two weeks of vacation a year plus national holidays, that was about it. And suddenly, I had twenty-one days.
Just before that trip came another milestone: my 40th birthday. My best friend gave me a birthday dinner surrounded by several wonderful friends. That evening, I told them that as I walked through the gates into my forties, I was leaving Mr. Wrong and a few other things behind me. And then I made what, at the time, probably sounded like a rather grand declaration: “I’m going to Greece to meet my Adonis.” I had absolutely no idea just how prophetic those words were about to become…
While I was growing up in a small town in South Carolina, thousands of miles away another small boy with some pretty big ideas of his own was growing up in Greece. His name was Adonis. Neither of us knew the other existed. We were growing up in different countries, speaking different languages, surrounded by different cultures and following completely different paths. And yet, somehow, those two paths were eventually going to meet.
By the summer of 1996, there we were. Two men from opposite sides of the world. Two small boys who had grown up with big ideas. Both had spent enough time with Mr. Wrong, and both were still looking for Mr. Right. Adonis was already in Mykonos, and a newly forty-year-old American dentist was getting on a plane for Greece.
I had twenty-one glorious days to begin a completely new chapter of my life. I was alone, single, forty years old and on my way to Mykonos, the Holy Grail, the Gay Mecca. As we approached the island, I saw one of the most magnificent sunsets of my life. There was something almost celestial about it; the sea, the light, the mythology of Greece and its ancient gods. I had this overwhelming feeling that something was about to happen to me. Something that might change my life.
The next morning, less than twenty-four hours after arriving in Mykonos, I boarded a boat for Super Paradise Beach. At approximately 12:30 in the afternoon, I stepped onto one of the most famous gay beaches in the world. There were beautiful men everywhere. Speedos everywhere. And while the Americans were still wearing bathing suits, quite a few Europeans apparently saw absolutely no reason to wear anything at all. OMG! I had arrived in Paradise! And I had come with a mission! Which one of these men was going to be my Adonis? There were certainly some interesting candidates. But nobody took my breath away. Until I looked toward the stairs.
At the top of the stairs stood a man with the brilliant Greek sun directly behind him, almost forming a halo around his head. He was golden; golden skin, the tiniest gold-colored bathing suit I had ever seen, and beside him was one of my favorite breeds of dog, a beautiful Welsh Springer Spaniel. For a moment, it looked as though one of the Greek gods had actually descended to Earth. My breath stopped.
He sat only two or three meters away. From behind my Glacier Glasses, I watched him and realized that he was beginning to notice me. My internal Geiger counter went off. Battle stations: This could be THE ONE!
Eventually, I removed my glasses so he could see my eyes and gave him what I considered my most irresistible Zoolander look! Then I walked up the stairs and onto the trail above the beach. I decided I would give him fifteen minutes to follow me. Fifteen minutes passed… Nothing!
Apparently, my Zoolander look needed work. I headed back toward the beach, and there he was with his dog at the bistro. There would have to be a Plan B: I was actually going to have to speak to him! I gathered every ounce of courage I possessed, walked up to him and smiled. Then, for reasons I still cannot explain, a man who had spent his professional life speaking to people suddenly lost the ability to form a sentence.
I stuttered: “Do—you—speak—Eng-lish?”
He calmly replied: “Yes. I speak English, Greek, German and some Arabic.”
Wonderful! I could barely speak one language at this point, and apparently he spoke four. I managed:
“My—name—is—Jer-ry.” And then he said: “My name is Adonis.”
Everything stopped.
For weeks, I had been telling my friends that I was going to Greece to find “my Adonis.” I had just traveled halfway around the world, arrived on Mykonos less than twenty-four hours earlier, and now this golden Greek stranger was standing in front of me telling me that his actual name was Adonis. So I responded with all the sophistication the moment deserved: “I—like—your—dog.”
Adonis apparently decided that I was either extremely nervous or having some sort of mental breakdown. Very calmly, he said: “I’m getting ready to have lunch. Would you like to join me?” It was about 1:30 p.m. My response was: “Uh-huh.”
Suddenly, I was sitting at a table with MY ADONIS. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t speak. Thankfully, somewhere during lunch I regained the ability to communicate. Adonis asked what had brought me to Mykonos. I told him that I was celebrating my 40th birthday, beginning a new chapter in my life and ending a thirteen-year relationship with Mr. Wrong. Adonis told me that he had recently experienced something similar; with one important distinction: In his relationship, he said, he had been Mr. Wrong.
And suddenly we could talk. What began as lunch between two strangers became an extraordinary three-hour conversation. Eventually, I confessed why I had really come to Greece. I told him that before leaving America I had announced to my friends: “I’m going to Greece to find my Adonis.” And now I was sitting across the table from a man whose name actually was Adonis.
At the end of lunch, he asked me out for that evening. Of course, I said yes! I had arrived in Mykonos less than twenty-four hours earlier: newly forty, newly single and convinced that somewhere on this island I was going to find my Adonis. Apparently, I only needed until 1:30 the next afternoon.
What began that day at Super Paradise became a long-distance romance that crossed countries, oceans, cultures and years and eventually became the marriage and the life we are celebrating thirty years later.
Perhaps that extraordinary sunset when I arrived in Mykonos had been trying to tell me something after all. Maybe there really is a Heaven on Earth. But before you believe everything I’ve just told you… You should probably hear Adonis’ version.