We met in ninth grade, just kids in the halls of Crestwood High, with no reason to imagine anything beyond the next class or the next weekend. We were somewhat surface-friendly; I say this to be kind to me. She didn’t care for me, partly with good reason, in part by mistaken belief. For me, it would be fair to say it mattered little. In retrospect, it adds to the theme, though.
Life was still wide open then. Graduation came four years later in 1971 and sent us in different directions. She became an RN, steady and sure in her calling. I drifted from job to job until I finally found my footing as a domestic relations trial lawyer. We both moved. She went west to Colorado. I went to southern Ohio. Neither of us knew the other was gone. We were living our separate stories, unaware that we would someday cross paths again and our stories would intertwine.
Then came the twentieth-class reunion in 1991. We sat together and talked for a time, the kind of conversation that feels familiar even when you cannot explain why. She later said she felt uncomfortable, not in a bad way, but in the strange way you feel when someone seems to know what you are thinking. I felt a quiet pull, as I often did toward an attractive woman in those days. But I drove home to southern Ohio and life kept moving.
Five more years passed. Another class reunion. Another conversation, this one longer. I listened more than spoke, something I learned to do in my office. But this wasn’t work. Something more was there, but neither of us was in a place to follow it. Still, it was as though the years kept circling us back, as if time itself was nudging us toward something we couldn’t yet name.
After that, the phone calls began. Long ones. Easy ones. The kind that makes distance feel smaller. We were separated by 180 miles, but the night moon became our link. It was the one thing we could both see at the same time, a quiet reminder that we were under the same sky even when we were not in the same place.
In 2000, we began to see each other. I remember our first date, recalling it fondly, with a bit of a chuckle, when I think back on it. It’s one of those forever things that stays with you; it makes one smile. I’m not into public displays of affection, but when leaving for home, I did publicly display it in a way which should have been embarrassing, but I felt like a high school boy again, that all a sudden, dizzying lust of a first kiss or a drive-in make-out session that you never want to end, trapped in a 47-year-old body.
She must have felt the same. It was the beginning of a long-distance relationship that included adventures known only to us.
We planned a wedding for 2003. Life said not yet. We tried again in 2004. Still not yet. But in 2005, the timing finally was right. The date was August 13th when Dawn joined me in southern Ohio, and the long road between us became a shared one. All the small things that had to fall into place finally did.
Years later, in 2022, we moved back to Mantua, the town where it all began. And just a week ago, we sat at our fifty‑fifth year class reunion, surrounded by classmates remembering the kids we once were. One of the nicest comments on a picture of us came from a friend a few days ago reading, “Lee, it’s so refreshing hearing you brag on your beautiful wife all the time. You never hesitate to flatter her in public, and most men don’t do that! It’s sweet, especially after all the years together. And the subtle way you two play around is funny and sweet. I love it. You two sure complement each other.”
I was touched by the comment. I often profess my love for my wife, Dawn, on Meta-Facebook, maybe to her embarrassment. And I guess people see it. What they do not see is the long story behind it. The decades of separate paths. The quiet pull across reunion tables. The slow, patient way life kept bringing us back to each other.
It amazes me how a lifetime can send two people in different directions, only to bring them together when the time is finally right. Our story was never rushed. It was steady. It was shaped by small moments that lined up just so. And it was worth every mile.
Happy Anniversary, Dawn. I love you more every single day.
[Photo selection is Dawn’s graduation photo and one from our class reunion last week. Both are important to where we are now]
