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In June 2017, Mr. Aoki, who was living in Washington at the time asked Ms. Gregory, who was then in Houston, to be his girlfriend. She was initially hesitant — Ms. Gregory was planning to start college in the fall at Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pa., where she eventually graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English.
Mr. Aoki knew they would be in a long-distance relationship for the foreseeable future. She eventually agreed, though, and the couple spent the next few years visiting each other and talking on the phone. In March 2020, when Ms. Gregory’s courses became remote, they moved to her parents’s home in Kerrville, Texas.
In February 2021, while training for the Tokyo Paralympics in Birmingham, Ala., Mr. Aoki got a bone infection in his knee, and spent a month in the hospital. Ms. Gregory moved to Birmingham for the month to take care of him, and by the time he started to heal, she knew she was ready for marriage.
“After we went through that, I was like, OK, I can do this,” Ms. Gregory said. In October 2021, Mr. Aoki proposed.
In April 2022 the couple moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., where, along with being an athlete, Mr. Aoki works as the community access navigator for the University of Michigan’s Adaptive Sports and Fitness Department. He received a bachelor’s degree in social studies from Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minn., and a master’s degree in public policy from University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Ms. Gregory is currently pursuing a master’s degree in social work at the University of Michigan, and doing her field placement work at Dawn Farm, an addiction treatment center, in Ypsilanti, Mich.
