Kick-Ass Kinda Girl

by Kathi Koll

  We started having little dinners together, and that was when I truly learned how incredibly interesting Don was. He could talk about anything. It didn’t matter if it was about local gossip, politics, history, or sports. He could engage in any subject, and with each topic I learned something new. He never pushed his beliefs on me or bragged, but he was educated and so versed on such a wide variety of topics.

  Months went by as we enjoyed these little dinners. The most incredible aspect was his patience. We’d be at dinner, and out of nowhere, I’d burst out crying, “I can’t believe I’m getting divorced. Patrick’s a wonderful guy in so many ways. No one in my family has ever gotten divorced.” He’d listen patiently and never pass judgment or try to sway me. He just listened. I’m not sure why he stuck in there, but he did and eventually the heavy emotional toll the divorce was taking on me lessened. I was falling in love with Don little by little, which was changing my world.

  I’m not sure when the subject of marriage came up, but after a while, little hints were being thrown around about being together forever. We’d been a couple for less than a year, but as one of my friend’s husbands said to me once, “Don’s a real estate guy. When he sees what he wants, he goes for it and closes the deal.” My friend had it right. I didn’t see any reason to marry, but Don was of a different mindset. I asked him years later why it was so important to him. He had the same answer he did about our first date, “If I didn’t marry you, someone else would.”

  Don’s favorite place in the world, next to Cabo, was St. Tropez in Southern France. He had sold his boat, and rather than cruising around from port to port, he wanted to try living in a European town for a month. St. Tropez was the place he chose.

  “Kathi, how about going to St. Tropez for the month of July?” How could I possibly turn that invitation down? I had been there a few times throughout the years since my first visit with my brother in 1976 and loved it. The only caveat was that I wanted my children to visit for part of our stay. I’d never been away from home that long and couldn’t imagine being away from my family for a month. It was OK with Don, but first he wanted us to make an “advance run” to check out the house he had his eye on leasing.

  It was May, and within the week, off we went. The trip wasn’t meant to be long, but we planned a couple side trips along the way. When we reached St. Tropez, the wind was blowing, and the skies were threatening rain. We checked into the quaint Le Yaca Hotel in the old part of the village and after settling into our tiny, but very Provençal, room, we decided to go for a walk. It started to rain, and rain hard, but it didn’t matter. We loved meandering through the streets and looking into shop windows, sharing one umbrella with nowhere in particular to go.

  “Kathi, let’s get back to the hotel and change out of our wet clothes. I have a spot picked out for dinner up in the hills.” It had stopped raining but would soon be dark.

  As we started to drive through the winding roads of Ramatuelle outside of St. Tropez, Don handed me a map and said, “You can be our navigator.” The hotel concierge had recommended a restaurant in the hilltop village of Gassin. Finding it was an adventure unto itself, but a beautiful one. The damp trees and fields were glistening in the setting sun as we followed the winding roads toward our destination.

  It was dark by the time we reached Gassin. The distant lights of St. Tropez could be seen miles beyond the rolling vineyard-laden hills as we walked towards the entrance to the village. There were only a few cobblestone streets and each were lined with little cottages covered in vines. I marveled how each entrance door was distinctive in its own way, exhibiting the pride of whoever lived there. At the end of the main street, there was a cluster of small restaurants. I took Don’s lead as we walked hand in hand, over the stone walkway to his chosen spot. A red awning with the words Le Micocoulier was painted across the canvas, and a garden overlooking the valley below held a small cluster of tables and chairs, covered on account of the weather. As we walked through the entrance door and into the dining area, the maître d’ greeted us warmly and showed us to a table by the window. He even seemed pleased with my attempt to use his language. The room was charming, with each table draped loosely by a Provençal tablecloth and lit softly by a flickering candle.

  The salad had just been placed, and before I could even raise my fork to take a bite, Don was on one knee in front of me. I was wondering what he could possibly be doing. The restaurant was full of local people quietly dining, but at the same time, we were the only ones there.

  “Kathi, I love you. Will you marry me?” From out of his pocket, he pulled the most beautiful ring I had ever seen.

  “Yes.”

  We didn’t notice that everyone was watching. One man stood up and announced, “She said ‘Yes!’” There were cheers from the surrounding tables. All eyes had been on us, but our eyes had only been on each other.

  When I went back years later, I could remember exactly where we sat. I had to see it one more time. I had to close that chapter of my life in order to move forward. I sat at the same little table and rubbed the tablecloth gently between my fingers, recounting each moment of that first dinner to my friend Laetitia. She had insisted on accompanying me on this last journey. Nothing had changed in this hilltop village or at Le Micocoulier. Laetitia sat across from me, and I described the evening as if it had been just yesterday. In some ways, it felt like it had been.

  Don and I had been dating barely a year when one morning towards the end of December he called and asked if I’d like to have lunch with him. He didn’t need to twist my arm, and within the hour, his car rolled up my driveway and I jumped in.

  “So what’s the occasion?” Dinner dates were now routine, but not lunch.

  “I’ve been thinking 1/9/99 has a good ring to it. How about we get married that day?”

  “Don, what are you talking about? That’s ten days from now. How about 9/9/99? That has an even better ring to it.”

  “No way. We’re on our way to Los Angeles to pick the spot.”

  “OK. I’m in, and I can’t wait.” There was no arguing with him, and I didn’t want to.

  I’m not sure whose idea it was, but somehow we both came to the conclusion of having a surprise wedding. We did tell our family, but swore them to secrecy. Other than family, we only invited friends who popped into our heads as people whom we had enjoyed being around during the last year. We were starting a new life together, and this made the most sense. We chose L’Orangerie, the most beautiful restaurant in Beverly Hills at the time. Sadly, it no longer exists, and I can’t think of a more beautiful restaurant there today.

  The manager, whom Don had called with a heads-up that we were coming, immediately met us as we walked through the doors of the restaurant. Once inside, one was transported into the most beautiful and romantic Parisian bistro this side of Paris—beautiful stone and slate floors, exquisite paneling graced with trompe-l’oeil, and an inner garden stealing any thoughts of a large metropolitan city outside. We had no need to look any further for the most romantic spot to start our life together surrounded by family and those friends who meant the most to us.

  L’Orangerie was famous for a spectacular ten-foot-tall flower arrangement on top of the banquette dividing the room into two cozy sides. This would’ve posed a problem for anyone other than Don, since we wanted everyone together. He offered to send in a crew of carpenters to remove it, promising to have it all replaced by lunch the day following our wedding.

  There were two things I was certain about: my love for Don and not wanting any stress. We picked the menu right then and there and decided to use the florist who already worked in that space. Instead of formal invitations, we called friends for a dinner party. I gave myself one day to find a dress, and when I didn’t find anything I liked as much as something I already had, I gave up looking.

  We came up with a list of 120 people, which was the maximum capacity for the restaurant. With each phone call I made, I simply said, “Hi so-and-so, Don and I are having
a small dinner party for eight to ten people on January ninth and would love for you to join us. And by the way, please don’t mention this to anyone. We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

  The evening was upon us. Everything was in its place—the banquette removed, spectacular topiary flower arrangements on each table, ivy-draped chandeliers hanging in the inner garden, which had been transformed into a dance floor, and seating cards lined up by the entrance. As our guests arrived one after another, and it quickly became obvious that we weren’t having a dinner for eight to ten friends. There was a buzz circulating that we were going to announce our engagement. Apparently there were a number of bets going on, too. When one friend said to another that she guessed we were getting married, the other woman said, “No way, I’ve seen Kathi in that dress before. She’d never get married in an old dress.”

  There was a definite excitement in the air with our little bit of mystery giving everyone something to chat about. Don and I made a point to move quickly through the room greeting everyone before too many questions were asked.

  “Let’s go,” Don said, leading me to a small platform where the musicians were playing.

  The music stopped, and everyone gathered to hear what looked to be a toast from Don. With a sparkle in his eyes, he lifted his glass of champagne and said, “Thank you all for coming tonight. We were going to have a Christmas party, but time got away from us. Then we thought we’d have a New Year’s Eve party but found out many of you would be out of town. So we thought, why not have a Wedding party. We’d like for you all to meet Superior Court Judge Paul Flynn.”

  The doors opened and in walked the judge. As he made his way through the crowd, it was as if the Red Sea were parting. There was stunned silence. Onto the little stage he leapt, and right then and there we were married. The cheers, applause, and whistles could probably be heard for miles. We had succeeded in surprising all 120 people.

  * * *

  While our life together was just starting, we knew our little family wasn’t finished growing. Nothing makes a house feel like a home more than a dog, and ours wouldn’t be complete without our yellow lab, Abby.

  “Kathi,” Don called me from his office early one morning, “what are you doing right now?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, something is fantastic. Meet me at the airport. I think I’ve found the perfect dog for us.” He had the enthusiasm of Christmas morning when a kid gets his first red Schwinn bicycle.

  “What? We’re taking a plane to get a dog? What in the heck are you talking about?” I asked.

  “It’s a surprise. Meet me in thirty minutes. We have to hurry.”

  We had just lost my Tibetan terrier, Mollie, a “white, fluffy dog” as Don described her. “Kathi, I like your dog, but she’s not a dog. She’s a little white fluffy thing. A real dog is a male Lab or a Retriever.” Don had always had big dogs and made me promise our next dog would be a “real dog.”

  I hurried to the airport, and within minutes, we were off. I always loved his spontaneity, and we were always game for whatever life brought us. After we settled onto the plane, we breathed a sigh of relief that we had made it.

  “I got a call this morning from a friend who told me an old buddy of mine from Cub Scout days recently died,” Don shared. “Apparently my old friend had been involved for years with an organization that trained and provided guide dogs to the blind, but he had never asked for a dog. Before he passed, he made it clear he wanted me to have one of the dogs who hadn’t passed the final test to move on to live with a blind person.”

  “But Don. I want a puppy to bond with,” I cried.

  “I don’t want to struggle with the puppy years. Trust me, we’ll bond,” he promised. “We’ll never leave the dog out of our sight for the next thirty days. One of us will be with it constantly, 24/7.”

  I knew nothing about guide dogs when we spent the day at the Guide Dogs for the Blind campus in San Rafael, California. It’s a beautiful eleven-acre spot nestled in a park-like environment and houses around three hundred dogs. We were greeted warmly and taken on a tour of the facility. Our tour guide was a lovely young woman who had a lot of enthusiasm for the program. She brought along a German Shepard to demonstrate the high level of training the dogs acquire. We walked all over the campus, visiting the veterinarian hospital, the kennels, and the apartments where recipients live while they are being trained with their dogs. It was incredible.

  I could hardly keep up with our guide as she quickly led us in and out of rooms, down trails, over fields. All of a sudden it clicked with me—I think the sunglasses gave her away, certainly not the ease in which she and her trusted dog moved. “Are you blind?” I nervously asked.

  “Yes,” she answered. “I’ve been 100% blind since I was thirty-five years old due to an accident.”

  Don and I were stunned. What an inspiration she was. Her enthusiasm and zest for life as well as the love between her and her dog was incredible. Her dog was her vision, and it took me an hour to realize she was blind. I was astounded.

  We were led into a small office where we waited patiently to meet the dog they had matched with the paperwork Don had filled out. There were many questions about our lifestyle, our experience with dogs, our desire to care for such a highly trained animal, and general inquiries into what kind of people we were. The organization takes great pride in matching dogs not only with the right blind recipient, but also with those who are given the opportunity to care for a retired guide dog or a dog who is unable to move on to actual guiding. “Flunked” is hardly the correct word; “Career Changed” is a better description of those dogs who don’t pass the stringent testing for all sorts of different reasons.

  In walked Corsica, a stately yellow Labrador making a career change due to a persistent ear infection, a condition which a blind person wouldn’t be able to spot. She was probably the most beautiful and well-trained dog I had ever met. We looked at her with amazement and were instantly drawn to her dark chestnut eyes circled with what looked like eye makeup. I was ready to scoop her up in an instant, but reluctantly said, “Do you have any available male dogs?” I think they were surprised, but said yes and asked us to come back after lunch for introductions.

  “They handed us the perfect dog. What’s wrong with you?” He never had to raise his voice. Just the way he said things sometimes gave me butterflies in my stomach. I always called it his “strong side.” Years later, the nurses knew exactly what I meant.

  “Don, I did it for you. You have always told me you’ve only had male dogs and never wanted a female one, remember? If you’re alright with a girl, let’s go back and see if they’ll give her to us.” Leaving my uneaten lunch on the table, we darted out of the restaurant, nervous that another couple would be gifted her before we got back to the center.

  “We have two male dogs to introduce you to,” said the director. They were led in one by one. Strong, beautiful, huge yellow Labs. But Corsica peeked around the door. We were in love. I would like to think she was too.

  “Can she fetch?” I asked her trainer before we left.

  “Uh, well, the people who need guide dogs don’t normally play fetch with them, but you can teach her,” he said and gave me a few training tips. I felt so silly for even asking.

  With that, we had found our baby. And as we walked out the door with her, who would have ever guessed that this Career Changed guide dog would have an incredible service job in her future. Life sometimes works in strange ways, or should I say miracles.

  The first thing we did was change her name. Don and I couldn’t imagine saying, “Here, Corsica. Sit, Corsica. Down, Corsica.” We settled on Abby. I don’t know why, but it just seemed to fit her. We bonded just as Don had promised. And as he insisted, she was never without one of us for the first thirty days. If she couldn’t come with us, we stayed home. If a restaurant didn’t allow her in, we’d order takeout and eat on the sidewalk. We made it work.

  One evening we decided to
walk to our favorite local restaurant, where we thought she’d be allowed on the patio. Alas, we ended up ordering takeout and sitting out front. Various friends stopped to ask what we were doing as they filtered into the restaurant, which gave us the perfect opportunity to introduce Abby and explain our situation. Next thing we knew, wine was being delivered to us in paper cups. There we were, eating pasta and illegally drinking on a public sidewalk. Abby had her first job—guiding us home.

  Abby and Don

  Abby has been the thread of compassion, unconditional love, and unwavering devotion in our lives. She has served as the breathing life lesson of how a dog can bring pleasure to someone disabled and at the same time teach a gentle, caring way of love to my grandchildren.

  No matter how sad I’ve been, she’s always been there with her big brown, dreamy eyes looking at me and her gentle little kisses licking my hands. She almost never left Don’s side, and if he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at her.

  It’s always been easy to know how Abby is feeling. A smile and wagging tail when I’m home lifts my spirits, but such a sad face at the window watching me drive away puts a little pep in my step to get home. She even sits under my feet no matter where I am in the house and sleeps on the floor next to me, just as she did for Don.

  3

  MR. AND MRS. KOLL GO TO WASHINGTON

  “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”

  —Amelia Earhart

  There are certain times in one’s life that will never be forgotten for many reasons, and July of 2001 just happened to be one of those. We were in our dream vacation spot: Le Patio in Les Parcs de St. Tropez. It was the paradise where we spent the most concentrated time, and the villa we rented each year felt like home in so many ways.