There are few couples our age that Keith and I respect as much as Annett and Byron.
I met Annett through my good friend Jenny, whom she’s partnered with on the US pro beach volleyball tour for the past fifteen years. Keith and I have attended their tournaments up and down the beaches of California, as far south as San Diego and as far north as Santa Barbara.
I’m a very loud fan. Once, when Jenny and Annett were playing a team who’d brought a huge group of fans with bullhorns and matching T-shirts, I sat right next to them and drew my line in the sand. I was determined to be just as loud as their entire group. Keith—and everyone else in the stands—was amazed that somehow I managed to drown them all out.
Now, I don’t want you to think I’m an obnoxiously loud person all the time. But when you grow up in a house with four other girls, you learn how to get your point across, and for me, sometimes—well, usually—that included increased volume.
When Annett and I first met, she only knew me as this crazy friend of Jenny’s who screamed at the top of her lungs every time she went to hit one of her killer serves, “Bring the heat, Nettie! Bring the heat!” When it comes to the three sports teams I root for—the San Antonio Spurs, the Bishop Alemany High School basketball team (where my brother-in-law is the coach), and the dynamic duo of Jenny and Annett—I make my presence known.
So I imagine the first time we talked to Annett and Byron, away from the courtside bleachers, they may have expected me to be louder than the average person. I’ve never asked them what their impression of me was before they really got to know me. (Now that I think about it, I may not even want that answer.) Over the years, our friendship has grown, and when Keith and I joined their family for dinner a year or so ago, we were so impressed by their love for each other and for their children that we talked about it for days. Literally, every day for possibly a week.
I don’t think we’d ever met parents close to us in age who were so invested in their children and yet managed to also keep their marriage a top priority. Annett and Byron met when they were superstar athletes at the University of California–Los Angeles, and their relationship has just gotten stronger over the years. Sixteen years may not seem like a long time, but in Los Angeles, where people change relationships like they change clothes, it’s quite impressive. What really drew us to them was their strong desire to excel, but not at the cost of their family.
As an African-American woman, I can tell you this is rarer in our community than I’d like to admit. And with close to 75 percent of African-American children being born outside of marriage, Annett and Byron’s relationship strikes me as being all the more unique. I’m not easily impressed. But their love and respect for each other catches my attention every time I’m in their presence.
Maybe it’s because I’m feeling a bit maternal these days, and Annett and Byron have done such an amazing job raising their kids while continuing to build their own marriage. (Did I mention that on top of competing professionally and being a former Olympian, Annett homeschools their children?) Maybe I need just one more reinforcement that it’s possible to be an amazing mom, wife, and career woman.
The first thing I wanted to know when we began was how they were holding up. Annett officially retired from the pro beach volleyball tour in the United States, and Byron was in the final month of a job for a church where he’d worked for as long as we’d known them. He was transitioning out so he could follow his passion of being a life coach. “That’s when he’s at his best,” Annett told me. “When he’s traveling around the country, speaking, and motivating others to live what he calls ‘their epic life.’ ”
For more than ten years, Annett had been urging him to take a risk and build his own business. She’d never stopped encouraging him or assuring him their family would be just fine if he launched out and pursued his passion. So finally, the time had come for him to step out in faith, and I was sitting down with them just a week before he would officially be self-employed full-time.
When I broached the topic, they were very clear about their goals as a family. Annett was crystal clear about her desire for Byron to fully enjoy his work as she had done for so many years. Now it was Byron’s turn, but financially, they knew, it could get pretty tight.
“We’re going to be fine,” Annett said convincingly. I seemed more concerned than they were. “We’ll give up all of this. If we lose our home, we’ll just move in with family until we are able to get back on our feet.”
“Have you had to do something like that before?”
Annett paused. “We’ve lost everything before,” she said finally, with a sort of nostalgic somberness. “We made some poor investment decisions, had foreclosures, and lost all our material possessions. But we never lost us. Our family was not negatively impacted by the loss of stuff. It’s just stuff.”
When she said this, I immediately thought about the time I ran the L.A. Marathon. If you’ve ever seen a marathon on television, or if you’ve run in one, you’ll notice something peculiar at the start of every race. Most of the runners come with sweaters, trash bags, and light jackets covering their upper bodies. Most marathons start early in the morning, when it is still cold (and often wet) outside. However, shortly after the race begins and the runners take off, those jackets, sweaters, and trash bags begin lining the first mile of the race. At the end of each race, marathon volunteers pick up the clothing and donate the items to a local charity to keep others warm.
When Annett and Byron decided early on in their life together to live it simply, they committed to wearing their possessions lightly, meaning, they are willing to shed whatever causes them stress, like marathoners shedding their jackets at the start of a race. Keith and I made a similar commitment to each other before marrying. If the going got tough, we’d show our toughness by simply walking away from anything that could possibly cause our relationship harm. We’ve not actually had to live out those words. Annett and Byron had not only lived out those words once, but were willing to do it again if that’s what it took to allow Byron to finally pursue his passion.
Annett and Byron didn’t know this yet, but what they were doing was exactly what many of the couples I’ve met along this journey had done. They had supported each other’s dreams. They’d encouraged their mates to follow their passion, no matter the sacrifice. In the end, not one of them regretted it.
Estrellita and Mario counted every Uruguayan peso on their way to becoming an ophthalmologist and an orthopedic surgeon. Silvina and Marcello supported each other’s goals even when they only had a few Argentine pesos between them. Jim saved all he had to purchase the materials needed to support Sandy’s dream of becoming a travel writer. Jerry sacrificed while Bonnie went to school all those years, and now twentysomething years later, she’s repaying his kindness. Barbara passed on a nursing job in the city to take one in a rural mining town so Doug could get better work.
Over and over again, I’ve heard the stories of couples forging life partnerships and encouraging each other to pursue their dreams. And each one, without exception, has done so without any regrets. It doesn’t mean it’s been easy, but for happily married couples, the adversity seems to make them stronger. It draws them closer rather than pulling them apart.
For me, writing this book was a risk. I had to dial back a career I’d spent decades building. Keith had accepted the change, too, not to mention let the world borrow me for weeks and months on end. And none of it comes with a guarantee of success. In a strong marriage, though, you are covered in strength and boldness that you’d never have on your own. You get a chance to move into the world, tethered to stability and the hope of a beautiful future no matter how much or how little you have. Because when you are a happy wife, everything else is just stuff.