My husband's intellect goes beyond the the ability to learn academic subjects. If he meets you once, he will recognize you, know your name and remember details about your family -whether it's a chance meeting in WalMart years later or you were a classmate in law school 50 years ago. He was my personal GPS before it was a device in a car, always knowing exactly what lane I needed to be in and what turn was coming up. He owns collections of maps, loves all things related to geography and could identify any place on the earth if given longitude and latitude lines. His greatest contribution, however, is to history. He spent 30+ years compiling a database on the Vietnam War Casualties. It now contains over a million pieces of data. In 2002, the National Archives in Washington D.C. requested the database be deeded to the archives. Two men joined RD in his research efforts in the mid-1990's. All agreed to deed their years of effort, naming the database after my husband. It was and is his proudest moment. I still stand in awe of his devotion to a project spanning more than 30 years.
RD took me to a lecture series in 1975 featuring Gloria Steinem, American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist. I thought myself a feminist before that evening but so many new ideas were exploding in my head as we left the lecture hall, I couldn't wait to talk to RD. I no longer remember how many nights we talked about the whole concept of feminism and the roll women played in society. I recall discussions about our respective mothers, his perceptions of women in the '50s and the dramatic changes in the next decade. Keeping my maiden name was important to me long before I met RD. Not only was it okay with him; he encouraged it and supported me when the expected push-back came from family and some friends.
For many years after we met and married, a nightly conversation began when we got home from work around 5:30pm and ended after midnight. We seldom turned on the television. When friends would complain about the lack of communications with their spouses I was feeling smug and happy having found endless shared conversation. One evening might be explanations and discussions of Shiites and Sunni differences (30 years before our Iraq War) and the next night we would talk about our families, sharing our personal stories about growing up. We never lacked for subject matter or topics to discuss. He appreciated independent thought and challenges to his own thinking. He was the best storyteller and what a deep, mesmerizing voice!
I fell in love with the most interesting man in the world.
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