AN HOUR TO LIVE, AN HOUR TO LOVE
The morning before my visit with Annett and Byron, I received a call from a woman I’d only known through her writing. I’ve shared one of her books with hundreds of people over the years. Its title alone is my constant reminder to cherish Keith, our marriage, and our life.
An Hour to Live, an Hour to Love was written, in large part, by Richard Carlson, the best-selling author whose Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series has sold more than twenty-five million copies. He presented the unintentional manuscript to his wife, Kristine, on their eighteenth wedding anniversary. I love how she describes that moment.
My husband held my hand and led me down a footpath, carrying a bundle tied with a gold ribbon, to our favorite bench hidden within a private canopy of cypress and pine that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. It was about twenty minutes before sunset and as we sat, my face snuggled into his shoulder, our arms wrapped around each other, we savored the moment, grateful to be viewing another one of nature’s treasures. He silently handed me the packet sitting on his lap. The letters jumped off the cover sheet, which read:
An Hour to Live:
Who would you call, and why are you waiting?
To Kris, the love of my life, on our eighteenth wedding anniversary.
Love, Richard
It was an awkward moment for me as I presented him with only a card.
Sitting on the cliff while Richard watched the sun receding, I read the most beautiful piece of writing I could ever imagine. Even from Richard Carlson, the prolific author, this was an astounding gift to receive. I wondered, Where did this come from? As I turned to face him, tears streaming down my face, I asked him if he was terminally ill. He laughed and replied, “No, not ill. I am inspired by our love and the beauty of life. I had to say these things.”1
Just three years later, on a routine flight from San Francisco to New York to promote his new book, Richard died from a pulmonary embolism at the age of forty-five. He hadn’t shown signs of sickness. It was completely unexpected. How Kristine was able to pull herself together is beyond me. The thought of Keith leaving this earth without me has brought tears to my eyes many times. I’m certain I will be comforted by the hope that I will one day see him again in heaven. But at this moment, when he is just four years younger than Richard was when he passed away, I cannot imagine.
In her grief, Kristine published the anniversary gift. Within that book was his favorite poem, “Tomorrow Never Comes,” by Norma Cornett Marek. “Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, / young or old alike,” the poem says, “and today may be the last chance / you get to hold your loved one tight.”2
When determining how to end this adventure, I thought about An Hour to Live and the love Richard and Kristine had for each other. I wanted a final interview with someone who knew what it felt like to lose his or her marriage, not because of poor choices or selfishness, but because of uncontrollable circumstances.
Initially, I had selected my mother to close the book. After all, many of the lessons I learned in how to create a successful marriage came from her and my dad. But every time I thought about it, tears welled up in my eyes. His passing was too fresh, too raw, to wade into those waters together. It’s possible neither she nor I would have emerged whole. So I sought out someone I knew could share her experience but was distant enough to allow a few tears to fall but not a puddle.
Driving through the mountains that separate the Valley side of Los Angeles from the ocean, I thought about who the right person might be. So many names flashed through my mind, but none of them stuck. As I made a left-hand turn onto Pacific Coast Highway, right after passing the rolling hills that lead up to Pepperdine University, a name came to mind: Kristine Carlson. Seemingly out of nowhere. I hadn’t read An Hour to Live in a while, but on this drive, her name popped into my head as clear as day. I instantly knew she was the one.
I immediately called my well-connected friend, Shelene, with whom I’d just been talking about this earlier in the day over lunch. “Between the two of us, we have to be able to get to her,” I said. “Everyone is three degrees from separation in Los Angeles, right?”
“Does she live in Los Angeles?” Shelene responded.
“I have no idea.” All I knew for certain was she had to be the final interview. I also knew the manuscript would be due to the publisher within a matter of weeks, and I didn’t know one person who knew Kristine.
The moment I got home, I jumped out of the car, ran upstairs, and flipped open my laptop. I began researching where she lived and discovered it was somewhere in Northern California. I learned she and Richard had both graduated from Pepperdine University, the same school I’d passed moments before her name popped into my mind. It must be a sign, I thought. I kept digging.
I sent a frenzied text to Shelene with my findings. I e-mailed other friends I thought could help me. And finally, as a last resort, I went to Kristine Carlson’s Facebook page and posted a message. I then went to her website and wrote to the generic e-mail address listed to contact her. In the e-mail, I told her about all the wonderful couples I’d met around the world and why I was writing this book.
To my surprise, she responded within an hour, agreed to do the interview, and signed it “Kris.”
The following morning, I received a call from a woman whose voice was absolute sunshine. There’s no other way to describe it.
“Hi, Fawn. This is Kris Carlson!”
I looked at my cell phone, looked at Keith, and then glanced at the clock. I had five minutes to get dressed and rush out the door for another engagement. Keith watched my mini circus as I held the phone to my right ear with my shoulder and struggled to put on my pants and shoes while mouthing to him, “This is Kristine Carlson!”
In our call, she told me how ironic it was that she’d received my message because she had just been thinking about her purpose in life and what inspires her the most. She’s written several New York Times best sellers and coauthored some of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff books with Richard. But she was trying to pinpoint what she was most passionate about, and she realized it was marriage.
She had already agreed to do the interview and said her assistant would call to schedule a time. I told her that Keith had proposed to me in San Francisco, where she and I would meet, so I’d love it if he could come along, and we’d make a weekend out of it. Then, completely embarrassed, I apologized to her for needing to run out the door, and we ended our call.
“That was Kristine Carlson!” I said to Keith, who was still enjoying this sideshow. Then I kissed him and dashed out the door. I called Shelene while pulling out of the driveway. “Don’t worry about trying to find someone who knows Kristine Carlson,” I told her. “It’s already done.”
“I don’t feel like we’ve even been home long enough to leave again,” I said as Keith and I rolled our suitcases down the driveway to the taxi taking us to the airport. We’d not even been home from South America long enough to unpack, and now we’d simply dumped out the clothes in those bags and filled them with clothes that didn’t smell like they’d walked the streets of Buenos Aires.
I was understandably tired, a feeling that was revealing itself a bit more each day after my breakneck travels. But I was also energized knowing that I had given my all and that, somehow, everything I’d learned around the world would culminate in my time with Kristine.
In San Francisco, we decided to stay at the Palace Hotel, where I’d returned after Keith proposed to me. During that life-changing trip, he had stayed at the nearby Westin hotel but had wanted me to feel like a queen at the Palace. I’m sure it sounds odd in this day and time that he got us rooms at two different hotels. But even before we began dating, I’d made a no-premarital-sex commitment to God in my late teens (which, by the way, could be a whole other, far more humorous book). Separate hotels was good insurance.
What I didn’t know then, but soon learned, was the amount of time and effort that had led to the words “You are my life. Would you do me the honor of now being my wife?” I’m fairly certain he didn’t mean for that to rhyme, as he’s not a rhyming kind of guy. But those were the words that flowed from his lips, and that was the greatest rhyme I’d ever heard.
My favorite movie has long been Pretty Woman. And before you think to judge how simple (and hedonistic) that movie may be, let me tell you why it’s always held a place in my heart. (I feel the need to give this justification because every time Keith has explained this proposal to someone who didn’t know me well and began by saying, “Fawn’s favorite movie is Pretty Woman,” he’s received befuddled looks.) Pretty Woman is a story of redemption, a movie about a woman who fell into a lifestyle she hated and that had brought her to tears more times than she could recall. But in the end, when she discovered her worth, she refused to settle for anything less than the best. I love that story.
Frame by frame, Keith watched this movie over and over again. He wanted to create a Pretty Woman moment for me. He wanted his proposal, and our ensuing life together, to be a part of my redemption story. So with painstaking effort, he planned a trip to San Francisco. Although he couldn’t afford to fly me in on a private plane, as Richard Gere did for Julia Roberts in one of the most memorable scenes from the movie, he did manage to get me on a commercial plane without a clue where we were headed. He talked the security screener into allowing my ring to go through without being flagged for review, and we boarded the plane without a hitch.
Keith’s plan was to reenact the scene where Gere took Roberts to the opera for the first time, but instead, taking me to see Phantom of the Opera. Unfortunately, the timing of his proposal came during the final week of the show’s run in San Francisco, and no matter how many ticket brokers he called, there was absolutely no way. So he went to plan B: the Broadway musical, Forty-Second Street. But before we could get to that, we had one other stop to make.
Keith had me on a tight timeline. I’d only have a few minutes to freshen up as he checked in at his hotel, and then he’d return to pick me up. I must admit, I whined a little bit because I wanted to take a nap; I was exhausted from him taking me out the night before (my birthday) and then getting up early to get to the airport. But Keith said no whining would be allowed.
“No nap. You can freshen up. You’ve got twenty minutes, and I’ll be back to pick you up. That’s it.”
Keith is a gentle man, so I knew something was up when he was this firm about the time he needed to come back for me. When he arrived, he had three things in the car: a map of the city (yes, I know; it’s hard to believe there was a time when phones didn’t have GPS), a boom box (again, yes there was a time), and a bag from Subway sandwiches. Pretty interesting combination, I thought. Within minutes, we were on our way, swerving through traffic to get to Golden Gate Park. As soon as we arrived, there was a disappointed look on Keith’s face.
“There are too many people here. Let’s find a quieter park.”
Well, that just about gave it away. He had driven at a breakneck pace to get to this park, wouldn’t let me take a nap, and now he was looking for a quieter park with fewer people.
“Honey, can you find another park on here?” he asked, passing me the map.
I scanned the map for any large, grassy areas. “Here’s one,” I said, pointing to Fort Point, a small park area near military housing overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. We headed that way.
As soon as we arrived, Keith took the Subway bag, portable CD player, and my hand and led me to a little area he’d scoped out. We sat down on a bale of hay, and he passed me a Subway sandwich, a bag of chips, and a bottle of water. Then he pressed play on the boom box, and as we ate, I heard Garth Brooks, Martina McBride, and Faith Hill. Keith had created a compilation CD with all my favorite songs.
Once we’d finished our late lunch, he grabbed me by the hand and asked if I wanted to dance. We slow-danced to Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance,” just before he spotted another couple fifty feet or so away.
“Honey, let me ask them to take a picture of us,” he said before darting off.
When he returned with the couple, one of whom held the camera, he fell to one knee and said those words I’ll never forget. I later had them etched on the inside of his wedding band.
“You are my life,” he began as tears streamed down his face. And before he’d risen from bended knee, I’d said yes. Of course I’d said yes.
Just as the sun was beginning to set, Keith brought me back to the Palace so I could change before going out for the night. As soon as I got out of the car, I showed the doorman my ring. “He proposed!”
Now, years later, we had returned to the Palace as husband and wife.
San Francisco is one of the most amazing cities in the world. The architecture is some of my favorite, and the city itself is a successful case study in urbanization. They’ve managed to squeeze more than eight hundred thousand people into a very small bit of land, without it feeling overly congested. People from all walks of life make up this city. It’s as diverse as New York but at a pace I prefer.
San Francisco’s Chinatown is the home of my absolute favorite Chinese restaurant, a little hole-in-the-wall on Jackson Street, between Kearny Street and Cooper Alley. Right across town, at Fisherman’s Wharf, you can get some of the best clam chowder ever made. You can go to Ghirardelli Square, to the ice cream shop bearing the same name, for a life-altering banana split. There is little not to like about San Francisco if you love great food and interesting people.
The next morning, we drove to meet Kris. Thirty minutes outside of the hardscape of San Francisco, we arrived at a neighborhood that reminded us a lot of ours at home. Rolling hills were manicured by nature instead of by landscapers. One-hundred-year-old oaks and towering pines reached for the sky.
I wasn’t surprised that Kris lived in a rural area. The openness in her voice and the love that flowed when she spoke—even in our short conversation—fit perfectly with this place. We came to the end of a cul-de-sac, and a simple brown-and-white cottage beckoned us. “This house looks like Kris,” I told Keith, as if I’d known her for years. As soon as I stepped outside the car, a beautiful, fluffy white cat came over and brushed up against my leg. It was so large it could have been mistaken for a dog.
I instantly fell in love with that Ragdoll cat, and I’m not a cat lover in the least. I knew Kris was waiting for us to come in, but the cat had me wrapped around his paw. I didn’t even care that it was shedding all over my favorite sweater.
I’ve often heard that dogs take on the traits of their owners. Well, this cat had certainly taken on the warmth and openness of the Carlsons. When we walked through the small courtyard and up to the entry, Kris immediately opened the door. As she welcomed us into her home, her beautiful powder puff of a cat ran in after us. “That’s Moe,” she told us.
She showed us around, then we all settled around her family room fireplace. The house was so disarming. It emanated welcome and love as if they had seeped into the walls and were slowly evaporating outward.
I took out my digital recorder for the last time and set it on the coffee table. When I looked up at Kristine, her radiance and smile were an irresistible invitation to find one last piece of wisdom.