That something is his wife, Shu Hua.

After an immigration paperwork snafu left the 57-year-old Nashua man in an airport waving a tearful goodbye to his sobbing bride after their honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, he has been on a mission to bring her back to Nashua.

But that process could take up to a year, and he has had little indication that his wife can come back here any sooner.

He met the petite Asian woman last May on an Internet singles site. After several e-mails and telephone conversations, he sent her flowers and then flew to the People’s Republic of China to court her. A year later the 32-year-old divorced mother of one came to the United States on a fiancee visa so they could get married.

Gravina, who is also divorced, even hung a People’s Republic of China flag in his living room to make his future wife felt at home.

A week after she arrived in Nashua, the couple wed in a small, private justice of the peace ceremony at a bridal shop in the Globe Plaza off Main Street.

Eager to show his bride more of the world outside China, the computer consultant and part-time college math professor booked a two-week excursion to Disney World in Florida, followed by a week at his timeshare condo in the Dominican Republic.

But in the midst of all of the planning and excitement, what he didn’t do was apply for the vital document that would make Wang Shu Hua a permanent United States resident – and ensure her entrance back to the United States. He thought he could do that when they returned from their honeymoon.

He didn’t realize the fiancee visa on which she came to the country allows the individual to enter the United States only once. Once they left the country, he had no idea she wouldn’t be able to come back in, he said.

“No one told me,” he said. “We got married. To me, getting married was the major thing.”

But as they tried to board the airplane in the Dominican Republic to come back home, the airline staff would not let Shu Hua – who speaks little English – on the plane.

An official “looked at me and said, ‘You can go, she can’t,’ ” Gravina recalled.

Because he had not filled out the forms for permanent residency, she was not allowed back into the United States.

“I said, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ ” Gravina recalled.

Gravina said he could not believe no one ever told him his wife would not be able to get back into the U.S. – especially immigration officials in the Dominican Republic.

“When they stamped her form (and) saying, ‘Have a great honeymoon,’ don’t you think they have an obligation to say, ‘Once we let you in, you can’t get out’?” he said.

Gravina and his wife were stranded in the Dominican Republic for two weeks, during which time he tried to resolve the issue. He said he was told to submit forms that were later rejected, and later he was advised to stay there for three months. But because his wife speaks only a little English – and he had a job to which he had to return – he painfully put her on a plane to China.

What went wrong

Gravina never received any paperwork telling him the fiancee visa is a one-way entry to the United States, he said. Instead, Shu Hua was given some paperwork from the U.S. Consular Office in China – but it was all in Chinese, he said.

The only paperwork he received was from the Immigration and Naturalization Service telling him he had 90 days to get married and submit paperwork that would make his wife a permanent citizen, he said.

According to Christopher Lamora, spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., visas are always issued to the beneficiary, not the applicant. That is why Shu Hua got the visa and passport, not Gravina.

“It is unfortunate that this gentleman and his wife are now separated geographically, but all fiancee visas that we issue are single-entry visas and it is marked on her visa that was put in her passport: ‘number of entries: one,’ ” Lamora said.

Gravina acknowledged he did not look at her visa closely to see that, but maintains someone should have sent him paperwork to let him know of the one-entry condition.

“They’re expecting a foreigner to have paperwork? She’s excited to leave her country, coming to a new life – how is she supposed to interpret what it all is?” Gravina said.

But the INS said the applicant has to ask questions and read all documents closely, including the visa.

“That is not the fault of the U.S. government if he didn’t look at her visa, if he didn’t contact INS,” Lamora said.

Even if her fiancee visa had been valid for two entries – which is never the case, Lamora said – a fiancee visa by definition is issued to the fiancee of an American citizen.

“When she entered from the Dominican Republic – or attempted to – she was the wife of an American citizen” and no longer a fiancee, Lamora noted.

Lamora said the INS and the Bureau of Consular Affairs believe Gravina and his wife should have realized she would not be able to travel to the U.S. the second time on the fiancee visa.

“Even if all documents were Chinese, that doesn’t change the fact that she had her passport,” Lamora said.

Lamora said this kind of problem is common, but he could not provide numbers on how common.

“It has happened before, let’s put it that way,” Lamora said. “This is not the first time. People are responsible for understanding their own status in the United States.”

Gravina asked, “If this is a common problem, why isn’t the INS correcting or rectifying the process?”

Amy Otten, INS spokeswoman in Vermont – where Gravina’s fiancee petition was filed – said it could take about a year before Shu Hua gets back to the States. The chances of the process going more quickly are slim.

“The service center isn’t going to expedite anything unless it’s a matter of life or death,” Otten said. Otherwise, everyone’s request would be expedited, she added.

Gravina admits he should have been more careful, but he cannot understand why it will take almost a year to get his wife back – especially since they are already married and she has already set foot on U.S. soil.

“Yeah, I didn’t fill out a form, but let’s look at the big picture,” he said. “She wasn’t in some cargo boat going across the water here. We got married – and she was already adjusting to neighbors.”

Now, Gravina’s only hope seems to be Marti Jones, the senior case worker at U.S. Sen. Bob Smith’s office in Manchester. She has been working with Gravina from the beginning, assisting him when he called wondering why getting the visa was taking so long. Jones said she checked the status of the fiancee visa application and helped move things along.

“We were able to make sure she could come here,” Jones said. “Once she was here, our job was done.”

Jones said she later advised Gravina to check that his fiancee could travel to the Dominican Republic on her Chinese passport, and she provided some telephone numbers to that country’s government.

All the while, Jones didn’t know Gravina would not file his permanent residency paperwork after the wedding and before the honeymoon, she said.

“I think it was just a very unfortunate misunderstanding,” she said. “You’ve got a gentleman here who’s very excited to be with his wife . . . who didn’t realize that without filing out paperwork and having a reentry into the U.S. it was going to not end the honeymoon on a high note. I feel very badly for them, but will continue to work with them.”

Meanwhile, when Gravina comes home each day, he feels like someone died, he said. All he has for company these days are his two pet rabbits.

“She’s 5 feet, 4 inches, weighs 120, and she’s the most understanding person I’ve ever met,” he said.

“It’s not been easy,” he added. “There’s been times when I’ve really been emotional about it.”

Internet romance

It was May 1999 when Gravina first saw information about his future wife on a singles Web site that features profiles of women from around the world.

Gravina’s interest in the Asian culture was sparked by former graduate students with whom he worked while he was chairman of the graduate computer science and graduate mathematics department of Rivier College from 1984-97.

When Gravina read Shu Hua’s profile, he knew he wouldn’t have to look any further.

“She said she was interested in nature, family, children, meeting someone who was sensitive, kind, caring,” he recalled.

He said her photo was attractive, “But that wasn’t the initial catch,” he said. “She was very interested in family, music, and she was a hard worker. She taught in a nursery and was a laborer, too.”

So he began e-mailing her, and because she didn’t speak much English, her sister-in-law helped with the writing, he said. Finally, he decided to call her.

“We connected,” he said. “Even though we didn’t visually see each other on the phone, we connected.”

It was then that he decided he was going to China to meet her. In mid-September 1999, he took the 16-hour flight to Fushun in the People’s Republic of China.

When he first looked at her, they both cried.

“I was just . . . she was just fantastic,” he recalled. “I knew, even at that moment, that there was more than a physical attraction. There was something that had built up over several, several months.”

They spent two weeks together in China getting to know each other. For the first week they had a translator along to help communication, but during the second week they both used dictionaries. Being together, Gravina learned about her playful side.

“She’ll tease me,” he said. “She’ll say, ‘Bobby has big, big nose Italy.’ ”

It was on his second trip to China in December that he gave her the diamond engagement ring he bought in downtown Nashua.

As soon as he got home from the second trip, he filed for the fiancee visa to the Vermont INS office.

She arrived in the United States on Aug. 17 – a day he’ll never forget. Gravina spent the next few days preparing the wedding.

“She really wanted a wedding gown,” he recalled. So he brought her to Vow Wow’s on Main Street and bought her a petite, snow-white gown. On Aug. 25 – the big day – he had a stretch limousine pick them up and bring them to the chapel.

“She looked gorgeous,” he recalled.

Confused in China

These past several days, Shu Hua hasn’t been doing well. Gravina called her Friday morning – her English has improved to the point where they can better communicate – and found that she hasn’t been eating.

“She seemed depressed,” he said, “and still can’t understand what happened.”

He hasn’t had the heart to tell her how long it might take to bring her back home, and away from the city he calls the most polluted in the world. He’s just trying to do all he can, since her family expects him to fix the situation within a month or two, he said.

The worst part, Gravina said, is that Shu Hua’s family thinks he sent her back because he rejected her. Getting them to understand what really happened is something else he now has to deal with.

Only time will tell whether getting Shu Hua back to Nashua will happen sooner than a year. But for now, Gravina has to focus on work so he can send his wife money. She earns only $15 per week and has virtually no clothes to wear – they’re all in his closet.

“I’ve learned that you have to separate emotion and romanticism, and you have to check all your bases before you do something like this,” he said.

“In retrospect, if I didn’t have the 90-day thing thrown on me to get married, I would have spent more time doing research.”

Now, Gravina has been spending his days trying to find help. He has been writing to Smith, Sen. Judd Gregg and Gov. Jeanne Shaheen. He is hoping Smith – not his staff – will put some pressure on INS to help bring his wife back home.

Smith “has been in the press for months for Elian Gonzalez,” Gravina said. “I live in Nashua. . . . I want to see him, I want to see Judd Gregg, I want to see our governor, I want to see a coalition of people do something about it.”

Gravina doesn’t blame the situation on anyone, but he wants someone – a New Hampshire senator, he hopes – to come out and help him rectify it.

“I’ve got a wife,” he said. “I want her back.”