My story began and ended with tragedy.
I met my late fiancé at a funeral for the father of my dear friend, who,
as it turned out, was KC’s Uncle. I remember
the very first time I saw him; he was walking through the reception hall of the
church following the service. He was wearing a suit and had sunglasses on his
head and he was with a beautiful young Asian woman. I thought to myself too bad that guy is married, he’s so cute. That is the type of man I
would want to be with. Following the service my friend asked me to
accompany her to her mother’s house and stay with her. It was here that I met
KC, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the lovely young Asian woman he
was with was not his wife, but his adopted sister. KC’s father, aunts and uncles
have told me several times how they had never seen anything like it when KC and
I met; it was electric. We clicked immediately and felt completely at ease with
each other. I couldn’t believe I had only known this man for a mere couple of
hours as I felt as if we were old friends.
KC would make little jokes about me, like that I was too tall in my
heels and too tan from living in Orange County. Somehow even when he was making
fun of me I could feel the affection and I knew it was his way of complimenting
me. KC and I were sitting outside and he
leant me his sweater to stay warm. When I left that night with his cousin, my friend
Heather, we were about halfway home when I realized I had left my phone in the
pocket of his sweater, so we turned around to get go retrieve it. I was so embarrassed when I walked back in
the door to see him sitting there amongst his whole family, adorned in the
sweater I had been wearing all night, with his hands in the pocket. The room went quiet and he looked right at
me, held out my phone to me and said “if you wanted my number so bad, you could’ve
just asked me for it.” I was mortified and
the family all laughed. I took my phone and thanked him, and left. When I got back in the car I looked at my
phone and scrolled through my contact list, where I found his phone
number. Three days later, I called him
and we set up a time for me to visit him in Santa Barbara. I knew I loved him right away and KC always
said the same thing. We talked about
living together on our first date (or more accurately, he tried his damndest to
convince me to move from the OC to the SB).
Everything in me wanted to just say “OK I’ll send for my things!” but
the logic within me and the fear of what the people in my life would think made
me wait 3 months before moving to be with him. KC and I had so many adventures
together, and we taught each other so much.
In less than three years, we visited mexico, Mammoth Lakes, traveled the
entirety of the California Coast, partied in Las Vegas and hiked the
mountainsides in search of wild mushrooms, fished the Channel Islands, and even
lived in Southeast Alaska for 5 months.
All this time we knew this was the real thing, and we often talked late
into the night about how we would raise our children (one of our own, then
adopting another one or two). We had a
timeline and a plan. Everything we wanted was coming to us, and just two months
after returning from our summer Alaskan adventure, KC took me to one of our
favorite coastal escapes on the Sonoma Coast in Gualala. We had this tiny little cottage all to
ourselves with a bay window that looked right out at the ocean; it was
incredible! After a quick tour of the grounds and a little mushroom hunt, I was
sitting in the bay window wrapped in a blanket and reading. KC walked over to me and stood at my feet
looking out the window but not saying anything.
He looked a little strange to me, so I closed my book and asked what he
was doing. I could tell he was starting
to cry and I reached for his hand but he pulled it away. He looked up toward the ceiling and took a
deep breath, and then looked toward me and said “Babe, you know I’m going to
love you forever, right?” I said “yes,” and he went on. “And you know that as
long as we’re together, we’ll be OK, and we can do anything. And that no one can ever love you like I love
you, right? You know that, right?” (Here is where it is tough to remember the
details). I said “yes” and he dropped to one knee and held out a little heart
shaped box with a bow on it. I think I
asked him what it was and he told me to open it. I said “you have to say it, you have to ask
me!” He looked me straight in the eye
and said “babe, will you marry me?” I
took the ring from the box, handed it to him, and held out my left hand; I
couldn’t speak. He put the ring on my
finger and I kissed him. He said “you
never answered me.” I screamed “YES YES
YES!!!!” and jumped into his arms. We
sat on the window for hours and talked about our wedding and all the plans we
had to make, what songs we would dance to and who would be in our bridal
parties. It was perfect.
The days that followed
were the happiest I can ever remember.
We were back in Santa Barbara, everyone knew he was proposing and knew
we were coming home engaged and everyone we knew was so happy for us. It was
eight days after he proposed when he went out lobster diving with his father
and a friend. I was no stranger to this as fishing and diving was his obsession
and this happened on a weekly basis. Around
sun down that day I got a call from KC’s father, Dave. I answered and asked if they were back in. He
said yes, and asked me where I was. I told him I was in my apartment. Then he
asked me if I was alone and I knew something was wrong. Instantly I flashed
that KC must be in the hospital; I thought he got the bends. I said “is
everything ok?” “No.” I collapsed. He went on “KC went down for his first dive
and he didn’t come back up.” I dropped the phone, and my friend Ashlee picked
it up and talked to Dave. I heard her scream through what sounded like a
tunnel. KC was missing for about 30
hours until his body was found outside of a cave on the front side of Santa
Cruz Island. When his sister, Emily,
came in the door and told me they had found him I already knew he was gone, but
I was hoping. She told me “they found him, but he’s, he wasn’t, he isn’t alive.”
I was back in the tunnel, couldn’t hear people talking to me, couldn’t see
straight, couldn’t stand, couldn’t cry or talk.
My next memory is being in my mother’s car and begging her to take me with
him, but she said she couldn’t. Then the hospital. Then drugs. Then a week of
flickering memories and lots of people and no food and everyone trying to give
me food. December 4, 2010, two days before my twenty-seventh birthday and eight
days after getting engaged my world ended as I knew it.
