True love

my name is Marie Zarate and I am 53 years old. This may sound crazy, but there isn’t a time when I can remember “not knowing” my husband Frank. We joke about it all the time, but it is actually true.

We probably were first introduced to each other when I was around 4 years old and he was 7. My dad was his little league baseball coach here in East Dallas. My dad started a team for my brothers when they were little, back in the early ’70s. They were the Tigers.

When my husband joined the team, I was always at the park during practices and games. He was a year younger than my brother, so they were in middle school and high school at the same time and were friends.

Frank and I were born and reared in East Dallas. I attended Stonewall Jackson Elementary, now Mockingbird Elementary, and he attended Robert E. Lee Elementary, now Geneva Heights Elementary. We both attended J.L. Long and Woodrow.

I started my freshman year at Woodrow in 1982, and Frank was a senior. Then I was seeing him every day at school. But, he was the big man on campus and I was a little freshman. We joke about that too! He was always friendly to me. We hung out, at times, at lunch, in a group and greeted each other passing in the hallways. Everyone liked Frank, especially the girls. That is when my crush on him started.

When he graduated in 1983, we would occasionally see each other around town. In the spring of my senior year, my brothers returned home from serving in the military to join an adult baseball league with my dad as the coach. That’s when we started to run in the same circle again. My crush reignited.

Finally, in August 1990, he asked me out to lunch and we have been together ever since. Frank and I were married May 15, 1993, at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church. We have two children, Marissa, 25, and Steve, 23; two Siberian huskies, Alaska and Nova; and a cat, Coco. Both of our children also attended Long and Woodrow, and we still live in East Dallas.

Marrying Frank was the best thing I ever did, along with having my kids. He makes me laugh every single day. He is truly my best friend, and I consider myself extremely lucky to call him my husband and the father of my children. We have been happily married for almost 29 years and have known each other for nearly 50 years.

— As told by Marie Zarate

vacation with a group of long-time friends — and after a few cocktails — I raised my glass and unequivocally asserted an emotional and heartfelt “I love you” to the other seven adults in my company. I said it not because I had loose lips from indulging in one too many, but because I truly felt it.

I do not believe in token offers. I do not offer them, and I almost always accept them. Tokenism has a specific place in my playbook of life. I believe in giving what you have — your time, your talents, an offer to pay for lunch — only if it’s genuine. If it’s not, odds are high that I’ll take you up on it. So, when I told these amazing people who are surrogate parents to my children that I love them, they knew I meant it. At this point, we had known each other for close to six years and through experiences that bind people for life, including supporting each other from births to deaths, kindergarten to middle school, layoffs to new jobs, and in sickness and in health, I was shocked when one of the seven wouldn’t, er … couldn’t say it back. To say that I was affronted is an understatement. I looked at Robert and asked him pointedly, “Bobby, do you love me?” Robert, clearly discomforted, replied, “Mita, I am very fond of you and consider you a close, personal friend …” “… that you love,” I added. “You are indeed someone that I hold dear …” he continued. “… and love,” I finished. We played this cat-and-mouse game intermittently from the early evening to well past midnight. And after everyone woke the next day, we started up again. Well, in full disclosure, I continued to badger, and Robert was kind enough to deflect instead of choosing to curse me out. I learned Robert grew up in a home where sentiment was sealed relatively tight, and fortitude reigned. Robert is the person you call in the middle of the night when your Uber doesn’t show up and during the day when you can’t pick up your kid from school. He is solid, dependable and stoic. But one to share his feelings? No, not him. My upbringing was similar in this regard. The cultural norm in our Indian immigrant household did not include expressing effusive emotion. And while I always and 100% felt loved by my parents, I can’t recall a single time in my childhood that my parents uttered, “I love you” to my brother or me — or to each other. But once I was on my own and free from Indian expectations of appropriate behavior, that is, I became “more American,” I found it liberating to relay my genuine feelings. Perhaps this was the gift I was trying to give Robert. A few days later and when our vacation neared its end, I closed our long-running conversation with a sincere, “You know what, Bobby? I know you love me and everyone here. That’s good enough.” And it was. Yes, words matter, and those three simple ones, “I love you,” can have great weight. But feeling love holds so much more value. I often tell my children, “Sorry is an action word.” It’s not enough to apologize, but one must take accountability and modify behavior. Love, too, is an action word. And what is actionable is Robert’s friendship, support and generosity over these many years. The whole exchange kept on for ages to our own amusement and of our friends — the proverbial inside joke that wouldn’t die. Until it did. Robert turned to me one evening after a few cocktails, and said, “I love you, Mita.” And I knew he meant it.

californian Christi, a bubbly young dancer who happens to have Down syndrome, taught a hip-hop routine for one of the self-advocate workshops at the 2004 National Down Syndrome Congress in Milwaukee. Austin, a handsome Texan from Dallas, participated, and it was love at first sight. After a very long distance courtship involving many Southwest flights and huge cell phone bills (this was before “unlimited minutes”) they convinced their parents that they really wanted to spend their lives together.

In 2009, Austin and Christi were united in a church ceremony. She moved 1,200 miles from her family to his duplex in Dallas, where with the support of their families and the community, they became inseparably happy, dancing their way through a unique love story.

Austin rode DART every day to his job at a downtown law firm. Christi worked supporting teachers at a parochial school. They loved acting and dancing every year in the Highland Park United Methodist Church troupe for people with special needs. They became popular motivational speakers around the country, sharing about their lives as a married couple with Down syndrome.

But their happiness was not immune to tragedy, as Austin’s life was suddenly cut short by a seizure last May, leaving a brokenhearted wife, a grieving family and the Dallas community he was so much a part of.

Christi is still living in their home, still loving her Austin, missing her dancing partner, but trusting God and thankful for the years they had together.

— As told by Judie Hockel, Christi’s mom

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amanda Perry says she’s unlucky with cars.

Her carpool buddy, Sandra, decided she was going to join rowing. Amanda figured she might as well join rowing, too, since she would be at practice anyway. So Amanda walked on the Ohio State University rowing team in 2001.

Then Sandra quit. Amanda rowed throughout college.

Amanda’s sophomore year, she parked her car and headed to rowing practice. Her car was one of 11 set on fire during a post-game riot. Not long after that, a dump truck ran into her next car.

Meanwhile, her coaches felt her rowing scores could earn her a spot on the national team. But instead of gambling her reconstructed shoulder, she pivoted to coaching.

The collegiate rowing world is small. Amanda knew Dartmouth head coach Steve Perry’s assistant coach. Some of the staff at Dartmouth and Ohio State had worked at Rutgers, where Amanda’s national team coach was the head coach. So it was just a matter of time before Steve and Amanda met at winter training.

“You might be at winter training for a week to 10 days. And you’re gonna get up early in the morning, and you’re gonna have several practices, so you don’t have time to do anything,” she says. “But you can hang out with the other rowing coaches and talk about practices.”

They had dinner together a few times over the course of several years. Finally, Steve asked Amanda out officially.

But in 2006, right before her first date with Steve, her car was stolen.

To keep her date with Steve, car-less Amanda, who was now the rowing coach at Brown, took the train from Providence, Rhode Island, to Boston just as a snow storm started. She arrived in Boston with just enough time to catch the last bus to Hanover before 20 inches of snow fell, and everything shut down.

“It was a gorgeous scene. We just had a wonderful time hanging out,” Amanda says.

That date led to others. They wound up dating long-distance for six years before flying out to her parents’ house.

“It’s actually a bit of a bittersweet topic at the time,” Amanda says.

Her sister, who had been diagnosed with cancer and was beginning chemotherapy, was hosting a wig party. Unknown to Amanda, Steve had talked to her family about proposing before they arrived.

“He was sweating bullets. Of course, I said yes. We’re best friends,” she says. “They [family] came together to celebrate my sister and us getting engaged as a kind of a hidden agenda.”

The Perrys were married in December 2012. After following each other’s careers throughout the country (there are only so many collegiate rowing coach jobs), Steve was invited to coach the junior national team. One of the rowers’ fathers asked if Steve would like to come to Dallas and coach.

Steve asked if there was a position for Amanda. There was. So they moved to Dallas in 2017 to coach together for the first time, joining the Dallas United Crew.

Now they carpool together to White Rock Lake before sunrise, six days a week to coach junior rowing teams.

“It’s a perk to be able to work with my husband and best friend every day,” Amanda says.

i'm not sure if our relationship qualifies as "love," but anyone who walks the lake in the morning has had a greeting from Joe Chatham. If you don't know Joe, he's the one on the bicycle that heartily greeted you as you were out for a morning walk. Joe circles the lake about five times a morning, depending on what his competitive plans are for the year. As he passes by walkers, runners and other cyclists, he shouts "Good morning" or "Good day, don't let it get away." If you aren't lost in contemplation or conversation, you will hear him coming; he has a bright, cheerful greeting for everyone he passes, and in his multiple laps of the lake, that’s a lot of folks.

Somewhere back in time I heard that there were three kinds of love in the Latin language. one being that of one friend to another. For me, this would apply to Joe Chatham. Whether I'm afoot walking my dog, or doing my daily loops of the lake, that greeting from Joe is like when the sun breaks through the clouds, even if just for a moment. You have to "love" Joe and his cheeriness.

— As told by John Griswold

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anam and Amir Ali Hashambhai broke up once in their 15-year relationship — when they were teenagers. The breakup lasted two weeks, and after deciding they were made for each other, they got back together.

“I knew he was the one because he just brought a different light and life to me,” Anam says.

Anam and Amir first met in the parking lot of a now-closed Cici’s through a mutual friend. She was 15 and he was 16. They saw each other every Friday night at the mosque and played football on Sundays.

The first official date was at an ice cream shop on a Saturday afternoon.

After graduating, Anam went to Southern Methodist University and Amir started working at his family’s drycleaning business. One of their shops is located close to SMU, so they would drive together in the morning. Anam would hang out with him in the mornings and then head to campus before going to work at Park Place Dealership. She’d pick Amir up at the end of day and drive home.

“It was kind of our weird way of dating in a very busy life,” Anam says.

For their 11th anniversary, Amir convinced Anam to go to Cancun for Thanksgiving instead of going to Chicago to see family in 2017. He proposed.

“I think I knew I wanted to marry Amir when I was probably 18 years old,” she says. “We both had similar visions for what we wanted out of life. And it’s weird because we are complete opposites.”

They still go to the same mosque on Friday nights, and Sunday is for football and walks around White Rock Lake. Along with working at the dry cleaners and at the dealership (she’s marketing director now), they flip houses together on the side.

“It’s just been fun growing up together. We were there during those awkward years,” she says. “We’ve actually really been each other’s best friends.”

— Written by Jehadu Abshiro

Photos courtesy of Maestri Studio & Michael Cagle Photography

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