Championing Community

“My favorite thing is, well, everything about you,” said Mike Ginn to his fiancée, Amy Hayden. “But if I had to choose one thing, I would say your thirst for life.”

Mike and Amy recently celebrated five years together. When they first met in September 2019, neither was looking for love.

Mike was still grieving the loss of his first wife, to whom he was married for 14 years. He was talking to a friend, Mike Hamer, about wanting to meet new people. “I was lonely, and I just wanted someone to talk to and confide in,” Ginn said.

As luck would have it, Hamer knew the perfect girl—Amy, who grew up around the corner from his family.  He showed Ginn her Facebook profile picture. “I saw her eyes and was captivated,” Ginn said. “I was like, ‘I already love her.’”

Hamer said the pair had so much in common: music, what they liked to do, and they both loved wrestling. “I knew they could be good friends, and my wife always said, ‘that’s going to be a match made in heaven,’” Hamer said.

Hamer asked Amy if he could share her phone number with Mike. She was willing to connect, but “I just got out of an eight-year abusive relationship myself, and I wasn’t looking for more than a friend,” she said. 

When he first called Amy, it was the wrong number, Ginn recalled with a laugh. After finally connecting, they started going to restaurants, concerts, and other places together.

On Dec. 6, 2019, they were crossing Harrison Avenue near North Bend Road. A Duke Energy truck was making a turn and side-swiped them while they were in the crosswalk. Both had serious injuries but recovered. “After the accident, it kind of fused the bond, and we started getting closer and closer,” Amy said. “He was trying to tell me his feelings a couple of months before that, and I still wasn’t ready. I finally said, ‘I love you’ back on Christmas Day.”

After the accident, Ginn said they decided to date exclusively because it made them “realize how precious life is.”

Amy and Mike are huge KISS fans, so they chose Jan. 20 as their anniversary, which is the birthday of the band’s singer and guitarist, Paul Stanley.

The couple hasn’t set a wedding date yet, but they love to go to fan conventions together and have other adventures.

“My favorite thing about Mike is that he’s so supportive, not just with me, but with everybody,” Amy said. “We’ve both grown together in our advocacy, the art world and we travel. And we’re constantly making each other laugh.”