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My Real Memoir: Loving Her Just the Way She Was

But Did I Love Her?

Billy Joel’s biggest hit “Just the Way You Are” was on the radio and on my mind that fall —constantly. Did I love my fiancée Dinah just the way she was? Or did I only love who I wanted her to be?

Meanwhile

I had a problem. I’d chosen to direct an epically wordy historical drama, A Man for All Seasons, a play that demanded flawless acting. In addition, my first job as a college drama professor came without a theatre. But then the Newport Beach Arts Commission announced they’d acquired an old church building on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific. “It should be a theatre,” I told them, “and I’ll prove it by staging a show there!” However…

Auditions for A Man for All Seasons drew just a handful of actors. Too few to even do the play, much less do it right. Relentlessly determined, I convinced two retired Arts Commissioners to play aging nobles. They weren’t actors, but they were old.

Next, I pulled in some ringers for the main characters. An impressive fellow-university grad, Bill, seemed perfect for the martyred Sir Thomas More. My director friend Theo agreed to play Henry VIII. And Jerry, my John the Baptist from Godspell, would knock the narrator Everyman character out of the cricket pitch.

Finally, Dinah agreed to play Thomas More’s longsuffering wife. Only one problem: the last time she’d had a major role in a play, she’d walked off stage in the middle of a performance. She had the talent, but did she have the constitution?

Then Christmas Break Arrived

It interrupted rehearsals, but gave me sorely needed time with Dinah. I’d felt increasingly disconnected from her. Had I mistaken admiration for love? There’d been no Roman candle burst like there had with Kat. Dinah and I had been an odd fit from the start. But then we’d stumbled onto a life-changing path of faith, and decided we were meant to walk that path together. But were we? Or were we only destined to find it together?

Still, we celebrated our first Christmas as believers in the person it was named for. And then we spent New Year’s Eve on a borrowed boat in Newport Harbor. It should have been a Hallmark scene, but it wasn’t. I was still getting the hang of chastity, and didn’t know how to be romantic without those additional off-screen scenes. How much of our initial bond had been physical?

A Week Later

On my way to Dinah’s apartment, I spotted Kat in a park. I made a quick turn into the lot, and strolled over to her. We hadn’t seen each other for over a year. Yes, she was the girl who’d swapped our future for a one-night-stand. But she was also the girl who’d embedded a hook in my heart with the words, “Maybe someday.”

She smiled and asked how I was doing. I gave her the good-parts version: “I’m teaching college!” But left out the insignificant parts like “and barely making ends meet” and “oh, yeah, I’m engaged to marry someone.”

Kat was affable, but as inaccessible as before. And yet I knew in that moment that if she’d said “maybe someday” had finally arrived, I’d drop everything to be with her.

And So…

After our rehearsal that night, I called off the engagement with Dinah. I didn’t tell her about Kat, only that I felt we were “growing apart.” I was hoping Dinah 1.0, the armored version I’d first met, would rematerialize, and say, “Fine then.” She didn’t. Instead, the fully human, fully capable of feeling shattered version stood before me with betrayed eyes.

And then I had the gall to ask her not to leave the play.

Dinah showed up the next night with a determination that was terrifying and beautiful. She poured every ounce of rage and pain she had into her character. When her husband Thomas More was executed, she wept real tears. And I wept along with her. Because she deserved to be loved…just the way she was.

Looking Back…

I realize I loved her just as much as I did Kat. But Dinah had wounds from a previous abusive marriage when I met her. She’d been guarded and slow to trust. Whereas, Kat had been playful and flirty, openly demonstrating her desire for me. And, oh, the power of being wanted!

Was I wrong, then, to break it off with Dinah? No. She needed someone who could love her just the way she was, and so did I. And we found that love together, just not in each other.

We found it in our Creator.