It has been an exorbitantly long Tuesday at work and, as I leave to go meet Kevin and Susan Dawson for drinks at Five – a hip restaurant in downtown Birmingham that only serves five menu items at a time, hence the name – it is pouring rain. As I walk from my car up the street to Five, the wind is so strong that it blows my umbrella inside out, rendering it useless. I walk in the restaurant soaked, in need of a drink and a happy story.
I got both.
Kevin and Susan are at the bar when I walk in, and we quickly settle into a cozy table at the back of the restaurant. Music from the ‘90s – also known as the best decade ever – is blaring. I order a drink, we get some appetizers going, and for the next hour and a half I am transfixed.
“If you’re searching for hope, this is a hopeful story,” Susan said.
I am searching for hope. And, I figure if you are reading this blog, you are too.
***
Two months before she met the man that would become her husband, Susan Packa told her mother that she was never going to meet someone. She was 33, and, as an independent woman, she’d leaned into her singleness and accepted it. To her, the real tragedy was not necessarily being single – it was marrying the wrong person. And she wasn’t going to do that.
Then, in July 2017, she was introduced to this guy named Kevin Dawson. At first, their communication was solely electronic. Susan wondered if this guy was ever going to ask her out.
It was semi-miraculous that they hadn’t met yet, because their paths had certainly crossed multiple times. At one point, they worked across the street from one another at the University of Alabama for two years, Susan in the College of Human Environmental Sciences and Kevin at the Rose Administration Building, the administration building on UA’s campus. They walked in the same graduation ceremony at UA in December 2006 – they went back and looked and, yep, there were both of their names, Susan Packa and Kevin Dawson, right there in the commencement program. They had many mutual friends. Kevin had even interacted at one point with Susan’s mom through his job. They lived in the same apartment complex. Yet, throughout all of these years that they could have met – from 2004 to 2017 – they never did.
Until, well, they did.
“Our paths were meant to cross,” Kevin said. “Have you ever seen the movie The Adjustment Bureau? It was kind of like that.”
Susan said that, had they met earlier instead of in their thirties – Susan was 33 when they met, and Kevin 32 – they probably wouldn’t have been compatible for one another. It might not have worked. They both might not have been ready or had the perspective on life they needed to make it work.
Good thing life always has better plans than we do.
***
Finally. Finally, Kevin asked Susan out. The date was set. Thursday, August 10, 2017, at Five. (Yes, the same Five I met them at. Isn’t that so thoughtful?)
Right before their first date, Susan came down with a horrible stomach bug. She considered cancelling; it was that awful. She called a friend for advice, thinking Kevin might think she wasn’t interested if she called it off. The friend said to just go. So she did.
Kevin made it to the restaurant before Susan and had the chance to catch a glimpse of her walking down the block as he waited at the door for her.
“She was beautiful,” he said, in his reserved manner.
Susan’s thoughts echoed his. This guy’s super cute, she thought.
The date was relatively short – about an hour and 15 minutes.
“It was like a meet and greet,” Kevin said. “More to see if we had a connection; more to talk and see if we liked one another.”
It went well. Good conversation was had.
“You can look at someone and know if they’re interested or not,” Kevin said.
And they both were.
“After a first date, we all think ‘What did I do wrong?’” Susan said. “I was 100 percent myself with Kevin; I thought, if he likes me, great, if not, I was myself. I just felt comfortable.”
As the date wrapped up, Kevin offered to walk Susan to her car, parked down the block. She, with that hefty dash of independent spirit still left in her, demurred. Ten minutes after they left one another’s company, Kevin texted Susan to check that she made it to her car. As Susan left the date, she had called her sister. It went great, she said. As they were talking, Susan got the text from Kevin.
“Oh, he likes you,” her sister said.
She was right.
“Walking from Five to my car is the longest span we’ve not talked since,” Susan said. “I never doubted Kevin’s commitment or intention. He has always been a gentleman.”
***
The brevity of their first date was matched by the length of their second date – a whopping nine hours.
“Our second date was five dates in one,” Kevin said.
Hey. Do you like baseball? read the text from Kevin. Susan did. So Kevin picked her up and they went to dinner – Cajun Steamer – and a Birmingham Barons baseball game.
“The game was just background noise,” Kevin said.
“There was a lot of conversation,” Susan concurred.
After the game, they popped across the street to Good People Brewing Company where, alas, there was no wine for Susan. So Kevin, being the gentleman and genius that he is, realized this was a problem. (Look, I don’t really like beer either. I get it.) They went to Skycastle instead. He dropped her off around midnight. He was sold.
She wasn’t far behind.
***
As fall approached, they were spending all of their weekends together. Kevin was living in Jasper, a little under an hour away from Birmingham, so they’d sneak in a weeknight date night about once a week and spend all of their weekends together. They had a rule – they wanted to introduce each other to siblings first, as both are very close to their respective siblings. Susan said she felt just so comfortable and soon found herself doing things she’d never done before, like introducing him to her two nieces, two of the absolute loves of her life.
They went to Alabama football games together – Kevin was a season ticket holder, so boom, six date nights, he thought. He got them concert tickets to see the Foo Fighters. They went to the Jasper Music Festival together, where Susan met Kevin’s brother. (Remember – siblings first.) Kevin took Susan to one of his favorite pastimes, a NASCAR race. It was Susan and eight dudes.
“My friends preferred her,” he said.
A quirk about Susan that, well, isn’t common? She leaves her cell phone in the car during football games so she can be fully present in the moment. Kevin was learning all of these things about Susan and falling in love.
“I just tried to be a perfect gentleman,” he said.
***
In October, about two months into their courtship, Susan went to Disney World with her sister, brother in law, and her nieces.
“Those four days felt like a year,” Kevin said.
Susan’s sister claims Kevin said “I love you” when he dropped her off at the airport. He denies it. Over Halloween weekend, Kevin told Susan “There’s only so many ways to tell you I like you.”
Oh no, Susan thought. Is he breaking up with me?
After a bit of a ramble, he finally said it: “I love you.” Susan said “I love you, too.” By now, they had met each other’s families. They were three months in and happy.
What happened next? Well, it’s the stuff good love stories are made of.
***
On Saturday, November 4, Alabama played LSU at home in Tuscaloosa. As usual, Kevin and Susan were there to cheer on the Crimson Tide. At some point, they bought a fake ring from a kid who was selling them at their favorite tailgate. They laughed.
They certainly didn’t expect to get engaged by the end of the day.
During halftime, they started talking about marriage.
“I’d marry you tomorrow,” Susan said.
So, before they left Tuscaloosa, they were engaged. And Susan meant what she said about marrying Kevin tomorrow – they tried to do it at the courthouse. But, it being Sunday, it was closed. They then decided to have a wedding.
And the ring? Oh yeah, the ring! Well, Jared was the only jewelry store open on Sunday, so, by 1 p.m., after lunch at the Bright Star, Susan had her ring. They booked a wedding for January 20, 2018. It was a good time of year for their schedules, and everything was super easy to book, despite the date being only two and a half months out.
(Now, for those whose heads are still spinning, yes, they had only said “I love you” one week prior. Yes, it was unexpected. But yes, it was oh so right. And no, if you’re nosy and wondering, like I was – Kevin never dropped to a knee. Who cares. Susan didn’t.)
When Susan told her parents, nobody questioned it. It wasn’t forced. Susan’s mother said “I see how y’all look at each other.”
When it’s right, it’s right.
It was a small wedding, quickly planned by the bride, her mother, and her sister. They were married at Bluff Park Methodist Church with a reception at Vulcan Park and Museum. They honeymooned in Key West for a week.
***
Now, keep in mind, in June 2017, Susan Packa was telling her mother that she was never going to meet someone. Seven months later, Susan Dawson married her Kev.
“I look at him and go ‘Wow,’” she said. “It is absolutely worth the wait. The right person is worth the wait. Anyone can marry the wrong person; it’s easy.”
Susan remembers her mother asking her a relationship barometer question before she ever met Kevin: Is life better with him? For Susan, it’s a resounding yes. She gained perspective, she said, as a single woman for so many years, perspective that made her able to appreciate Kevin, much like he is able to adequately appreciate her every day.
“I appreciate the time I had on my own,” she said. “I had things I needed to learn. Things might be different had we been together all along. I needed to mature and grow. Perspective is so important. It’d be so easy to take him for granted, but instead, I appreciate all that he is.”
And he, her.
“We met when we were supposed to,” he said.
Despite the countless occasions when they could have crossed paths, they didn’t. And they thank God for it. Susan had gotten to the point, at 33, when she felt like everything was off schedule. And she wanted a family, and she thought the timing wouldn’t work out for her to have what she’d always dreamt of.
Susan turned 33 in June, met Kevin in July, got engaged to him in November, and married him in January – all before she turned 34.
It works because their communication is good, Kevin said; they talk and handle situations together. They are a team, he said. They do little things to make one another happy.
I spoke to the Dawsons just one month after their first wedding anniversary. It was a fun year, a wonderful year, Susan said. And she is thankful for her wait – so very thankful. She appreciates Kevin more, and he her, because it wasn’t necessarily a guarantee that they would find one another. She had given up hope in meeting someone, but love found her, just the same. And it was worth the wait.
“I had completely lost hope,” she said. “Kevin came out of nowhere.”
Our drinks are finished and our appetizers are eaten and it’s time for me to face the rainstorm again that has been lingering outside – a rainstorm that, coincidentally, resembles my love life at present: Messy. Chaotic. Unsettling. Susan promised when I walked in the door of Five that if I was searching for hope, this was a hopeful story.
And the abundant hope that she and Kevin have given me is enough to get me through the literal and proverbial rainstorm of the night.
