Dawn and Rich

Posted Monday, May 19, 2008 12:17 PM

High school sweethearts
 
Rich and I met back in 1986 in high school. I was a senior at Mother McAuley, an all-girls Catholic school, and he was a senior at Brother Rice, the all-boys school next door.
 
I decided to take Mechanical Drawing senior year, mainly because it was the only class offered at the boys' school. Every day I'd walk across the football field to the boys' school with my carefully (and liberally) applied black eyeliner, a chain metal belt over my plaid uniform skirt, and sometimes with pink hair because I was a bit of a punk back then.
 
One guy in the class continually caught my eye -- he was tall with spiky blond hair and light blue eyes, and he dressed like Simon LeBon! I was such a Duran Duran freak.
 
Not being a shy girl, I came up with a plan to snag him. On Valentine's Day 1986, I walked into Mechanical Drawing, went over to Rich's desk, and set down one red rose on his draft paper. The whole class erupted into pandemonium, of course, with all the kids yelling "AWWWWWW!" and the teacher screaming at us to calm down.
 
Rich was so shy and embarrassed that, when class ended, he actually RAN out the door, but I caught up to him and told him that he was taking my phone number and that he would be calling me to take me out that weekend. So Rich dropped all of his books and took my number.
 
We ended up dating throughout senior year and were madly in love, but then Rich's parents bought a business in The Dells, so his entire family moved to Wisconsin immediately after graduation. We decided to let each other go and do our own thing, as it would be too hard to maintain a long-distance relationship. We never let on how broken-hearted we really were.

Going separate ways

We kept in touch on and off until around 1994 and then completely lost contact as Rich moved from Wisconsin to Germany to Kentucky due to the success of his record label and vintage video game business.
 
I focused on my career in IT, and up until last year, I had pretty much decided that I’d never get married, as I could never find "the guy." I also started a photography blog on Buzznet that I've been posting on since 2003.
 
April 2007 came around, and Rich suddenly felt compelled to find me. He was prepared to hire a private investigator if necessary, but thanks to the magic of interwebs, all he did was Google my name, and my goofy mug popped right up. According to him, there was some dancing around the room and yelling of "I found her!!" which I would’ve paid good money to see.
 
Reunited…and the rest is history

He contacted me via email and came up from Kentucky to visit in May of 2007, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. He has only gone back there to pack up his stuff and put his house on the market.
 
We also found out that our lives have been eerily parallel over the years, especially medically. I have some issues with my spine and have had over seven operations to correct them since 1997, when I found out how severe it was. Rich found out in 1999 that he had a brain tumor and has had several operations and treatments. We both have chronic pain, and we’ve had to wean ourselves off of the incredible amount of medications that doctors tend to prescribe to people like us. We’re now both doing very well and are really excited about our future together!
 
Rich had an operation a few weeks ago to repair the damage done to his eye by the brain tumor and will be able to get married without the eye patch, which is REALLY exciting for us. Although I was kind of looking forward to marrying a pirate!
 
 
Rich and I had our first date in 1986 at the Plush Horse Ice Cream Parlour in Palos Park. So I was a little suspicious on December 5, 2007, when Rich suddenly developed this uncontrollable craving for Butterfinger ice cream from the Plush Horse and just HAD to take me there, even though it was about 20 degrees outside.
 
We got our ice cream and sat down, and I saw Rich fumbling with something in his pocket out of the corner of my eye. Then he got down on one knee, at which point I covered my face and started laughing like a fool while he proposed. I said I would marry him only if he married me back, and I whipped out the engagement ring I had gotten for him. Poor guy…his mouth dropped open in shock. I had been carrying around his ring in my purse for weeks in preparation for this moment. He never did answer me, though, until a few days later when my aunt put him in a headlock and made him.