Brittney Griner and her wife, Cherelle Griner, saw each other for the first time in 10 months on Dec. 8 when the WNBA star landed in San Antonio. Griner was detained in Russia for nearly a year before President Joe Biden made a deal for her release. When the two finally reunited, there were tears and it “did not feel real” at first, Cherelle, 30, said in a new interview with PEOPLE.
Cherelle began Dec. 8 in the White House, when Biden announced he struck a deal with the Russian government to exchange arms dealer Viktor Bout for Griner. Hours later, Cherelle was in San Antonio and saw Griner from inside her plane window. “We were both just instantly crying,” Cherelle recalled of the moment their eyes met. “I was standing there full of tears and someone ran over and handed me a handkerchief. I definitely needed it.”
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Before Cherelle could meet Griner though, medical personnel rushed onto the plane to evaluate Griner. When Griner was given the all-clear to leave the plane, she and Cherelle met and hugged. “I couldn’t stop touching her face,” Cherelle said. “I was like, ‘Is this really you?’ It did not feel real. It was chilling – and warm. I was just holding on tight. I couldn’t let her go.”
Two days later, Griner, 32, was allowed to leave Texas and return to her and Cherelle’s home in Arizona. They spent the entire first night just talking, trying to make up for all that lost time. They could only communicate through letters during Griner’s 10-month detention.
“I had all my freedom,” Cherelle said of her own experience throughout the past year. “I had my bed. But when you have your family overseas in a situation like that, time zones play a factor. Every night, that’s the only time I could talk to her attorneys and I could handle things, anything related to Russia. And so I just hadn’t slept.”
It was “unfortunate” that the couple spent 10 months apart, but now the two are spending time getting to learn what they went through from each others’ perspectives, Cherelle explained. “We’re taking it slow. We are not doing it all at once,” she told PEOPLE. “But we are honoring the fact that I went through something that was really hard and difficult without BG’s awareness, and vice versa. Day by day, we’re just feeding a little bit to the soul and understanding each other’s journey so we can actually start walking together.”
Cherelle and Griner dived into the holiday traditions they thought they would miss this year. “We’re mindful of the fact you can’t go backwards. You say, ‘Oh, let’s get back to normal,’” she told PEOPLE. “We do understand that the normal we are referring to was what we were doing before February 17. We reminisce about certain things in the past. Still, we’re trying to make sure we’re not going backwards. For the most part, [our] eyes focused on what’s in store next for the both of us.”
Griner was playing for the Russian Premier League during the WNBA offseason earlier this year. On Feb. 17, she was detained by Russian customs officials because she was carrying less than a gram of medically-prescribed hash oil. After pleading guilty to smuggling charges, she was sentenced to nine years in prison in August. She was later transferred to a Russian penal colony. On Dec. 8, Biden announced that U.S. officials arranged a prisoner exchange after months of negotiations to bring Griner back home.