We celebrate #DetroitLove this Valentine's Day by highlight Detroit couples.

#DetroitLove: Paul and Tameca

We celebrate #DetroitLove this Valentine's Day by highlight Detroit couples.

We are back for a third year highlighting #DetroitLove! We put out the call for couples to be featured in our annual Valentine's Day series and they answered. 

Meet Paul and Tameca

“This story stretches 40 plus years. My husband Paul Young and l met as nine-year-olds at Wilkins Elementary School in 1979.  He was my first boyfriend and the first boy l ever kissed. I broke up with him because he always wanted to kiss me, and l wasn't that type of girl. We would see each other in passing through the years, and at 17, we tried our hand at a relationship again. Unfortunately, we were torn apart because he was sent to prison and was given life without the possibility of parole. He fought for 30 years to clear his name. In 2006, we reconnected and decided we would fight for his freedom together.

In July 2007, we married and did everything we could to get him home. When the Supreme Court ruled that it was cruel and unusual punishment to sentence someone 17 and younger to life without parole, we knew God had made a way for us to truly be together. 

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June 2017, he was released from prison and we celebrated 10 years of marriage. 

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We have traveled to Paris and Amsterdam; he promised to make up all of the years that were taken away from us.  The City of Detroit made a way for returning citizens to fit back into the community with job training programs and job offers. Paul works for the Detroit Water and Sewage Department going on two years.  I work for FCA going on 22 years.” –Tameca 

The couple was photographed at Kwicky Bar where Paul proposed to Tameca AGAIN after he returned home. 

photo credit: Cyrus Tetteh