FOREST LAKE, Minn. -- There's something about new love that's just so easy to identify when you meet Jennifer Silvera and Steve Lindemer.
Maybe it's the lingering looks, the gentle touch or the ability to finish each others recollections of a first date.
"I'd say the 17th. We call that the information date," Jennifer says.
But before this love story could begin, another one had to end.
On September 6, 2005, a fleeing suspect hit and killed Lino Lakes police officer Shawn Silvera.
Silvera was Jennifer's husband and the father of their 2-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter.
"I remember so many days, continually (saying) even after a year, saying I can't believe this," recalled Jennifer.
Over the years, the young mother talked openly and eloquently about her grief and even wrote a book about it.
But for her, hope always won out over hurt.
"(I was) hoping for something more and hoping for healing and hoping for strength and hoping to find good again" she explained.
And she did find good again, which brings us back to the second love story.
Last fall, Steve Lindemer proposed to Jennifer.
It happened near the north shore atop a fire tower.
Jennifer says, "He just said no matter how hard the climb is, I want to be with you."
The couple married on New Year's Day surrounded by their four children, now six and seven year old Madelynn and Jordan and Steve's daughters, Kasha and Onie.
The family even took a "family-moon" together in Costa Rica.
Today, they live together, every other week in Forest Lake.
And together they also remember Shawn, a daddy who won't be forgotten.
"There's times that they miss their dad and I understand that," Steve says.
This is hardly what Jennifer could have imagined years ago, but you could say she dared to believe and hope new love would find her again.
"So many people have said, you know Jennifer, we believe that Shawn hand-picked Steve for you. We don't know our future, but you cannot give up hope because that's what really keeps you going no matter what life looks like, no matter what path you're on."
(Copyright 2011 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
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