My husband is good-hearted, which is a top thing to be looking for in a partner. He's also unique. When I met Ron, he had the habit of turning his collars. If a shirt collar was worn out, he'd rip out the seams, turn the collar around, and sew it back on for a good-as-new shirt. "Who does that?!" I wondered.
His first delivery as an OB-GYN resident turned out similarly unusual. It was a quiet night on the ward, and the nurses were trying to teach Ron to knit. They heard the elevator ping, announcing a new patient. Then a foreign man burst through the doors, yelling "Help! Help!" while pushing his rapidly crowning wife in a wheelchair.
Everyone went into quick action, including Ron who would finally get to practice what he came to medicine for -- to deliver babies. The husband had his own ideas though. When Ron tried to check his wife's progress, the man threw his coat over her and started yelling in broken English about the inappropriateness of a strange man looking at his wife.
What was Ron to do? First, he calmed the man by assuring him that everything would be all right. And then he delivered his first baby by poking around under a raincoat without looking.
I like that about Ron. He stays supportive of people, no matter what -- and helps them save face. He believes that why people do what they do matters more than what they do.
Ron's done many cool things for my sons. At age 9, my youngest was part of a Mastermind Group, where the members brainstorm, practice new skills and support each other in creating personal success.
My son's first assignment was to precipitate something within a week. He decided to precipitate $5. Toward the end of the week, the money hadn't shown up, and he was growing anxious. So Ron said to him, "Let's take a walk."
There they were, walking down our street, when my son found a $5 bill on the ground! He was thrilled, with renewed confidence! Of course, he only found it after Ron managed to get him to walk past it four times.
Another time, two of my sons found a treasure map on the sidewalk outside our house. They were beyond excited! It looked authentic, with singed edges, a skull and crossbones, and a diagram of our neighborhood, with a red X marking a spot. They set out to follow the directions, and Ron went along to help.
The three of them followed the path through the gras. They crept down the boardwalk stairs to the beach. They figured out that the 43 next to the X meant piling #43. They sat in a circle holding hands, repeating the magic word: "yetzirachoc" three times. And finally, they dug for the treasure in the sand.
What was under the X? The buried treasure turned out to be sodas and candy. "Wow! This is incredible!" they all agreed, as they sat by the shoreline, drinking and eating their treasure. "Who'd left the map?" they would wonder for years, always missing the clue in the misspelled word gras -- which is how Ron spells grass in his native language, Dutch.
I'm American and Ron's from Amsterdam. When we met more than two decades ago, I hadn't had a date in years. I'd been raising my three sons by myself and didn't have the time or patience for anything casual.
Ron and I started out as great friends. And eventually, I found out that he'd seen my photo on the cover of a book I'd coauthored, and he'd "known inside" that I was the one he would marry -- and he'd traveled 4,000 miles to find me.
What do I make of it? I believe in the probability of magic -- that we all have the power to draw to ourselves whatever and whomever we need to fulfill our purposes and to share real love.
What's the third thing Ron did? My sons' dad died at age 56, from a brain tumor. One evening during Paul's last weeks, Ron and I sat across the dinner table from each other in the Netherlands. We were both crying, and I said to him, "I have to go," and he said, "I know, you have to go."
So I flew back to America and moved into Paul's house, to help take care of him until he passed. I did it so our sons wouldn't be alone in the experience. And helping them take care of Paul at the end turned out to be the most natural thing to do. The real hero was Ron, in supporting me and encouraging me to go.
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