To Cate, With Love

With Cate - Honeymoon at Niagara Falls

God must have been slapping his knee, thinking “this is gonna be a good one.” Cupid laughed, and shot two arrows at the same time.

One the greatest blessings in life is having love come in – the kind of love that you didn’t see coming, that none of your friends or family believe will last; that doesn’t tap on your door, but smashes it down like you see in cop shows on tv. The kind that works through knock down drag outs, financial hardship, more moves than one can possibly imagine (okay, twelve!), kids doing what kids do, etc.

I was a young man when Robert Palmer was Addicted to Love, Madonna was getting Into the Groove, and Dire Straits was Getting Money for Nothing. I spent my time day-dreaming about life and the future, while surfing and enjoying what the coast of northern San Diego county had to offer. It was the summer of 1985, and I was sporting a tight flat-top and six-pack abs (now one pack abs!). Almost inexplicably I did a most unusual thing; something noone, not even I, could have imagined a few years prior – I decided to join the United States Air Force.

Turned down the first time with “one of the lowest scores” (in the words of the recruiter) on the entrance exam, I just chalked it up to the fact that it wasn’t meant to be, and moved on. Two months elapsed when I got a call back from the shocked recruiter. He didn’t understand it himself, but somehow, they were short officers for the next scheduled class, and they needed me! “Say What?!?!” He wanted to know if I could possibly make it to go to the recruit processing station immediately, and prepare for Officer Training School (OTS). So I answered the call to duty.

M-F-E-O

(Three months and a graduation from OTS later, I’m on leave in Omaha, Nebraska).

Clearly I had no control over the situation that was about to occur. My brother, Scott, had invited me to check out his workplace – WOWT television station – where he was a director for the news. I went because he seemed to really want me to go for some reason.

As I walked into the building I saw this beautiful woman (who later became my wife) and was struck by the face. I’ve always been far more interested in a woman’s face – the twinkle in the eyes, the dimple in the cheek, the lips forming a smile – than I have in other parts of the body (yes, for the most part!). Her face pulled me in, and struck me down all at the same time.

It was the kind of face that had she been a serial killer, I would have thought at the time, “that’s cool; I can dig that.”

To describe how this went down – and My wife will love me for this – though I will now need to turn in my “man card”; I must quote from one of my wife’s favorite movies – Sleepless in Seattle:

Sleepless in Seattle

Annie: “Dear Annie, thanks for your letter. It was great. You sound neat. We’re very excited about meeting you in New York on Valentine’s Day and seeing if we are M-F-E-O. See you soon. Sleepless in Seattle.

Becky: M-F-E-O?

Annie: “Made for each other“.

To bring back a shred of my masculinity, allow me to pull from one of my favorite movies, that vividly describes how I felt at that moment – Don Juan DeMarco, with Johnny Dep and Marlon Brando.

“There are those that do not believe that a single soul born in heaven can split into twin spirits and shoot like falling stars to earth, where over oceans and continents their magnetic forces will finally unite them back into one. But, how else to explain love at first sight?”

Don Juan DeMarco - awesome movie!

I still wonder why it works sometimes; we have friends who have split up who seemingly got along much better with each other than we have. But we persevere by the grace of God. We latched on to Shania Twain‘s song “You’re Still the One,” many years ago because it seems to sum up what we’ve had going on:

“Looks like we made it
Look how far we’ve come my baby
We mighta took the long way
We knew we’d get there someday.”

Love is hardly ever perfect; it can be very messy some days, but the mystery as to why it works, I’ll never be able to figure out. So I don’t try. I just go with it.

To Cate, with love, thanks for 26 years!