The Path Less Travelled

Lorraine: Spring 1993

I spent the week after the marriage proposal in a near apoplectic state. I did everything in a frenzy. I lost sleep. One of my friends even told me that I looked busy just sitting down. There was so much to decide, so much to think about.

The first thing I did was talk to the department about pushing the trip to Japan back a term or two. Unfortunately, it would interfere with the rest of my program, and the department wouldn't sponsor me if I waited a year. If I didn't want to spend the year, I couldn't even just go for the summer of the original program. It looked like it was all or nothing, and Kennet wouldn't hear of me not going. I would have had to fight not to go; the guilt would have killed him if he thought he had kept me from going.

Kennet and I spent a lot of time that week trying to figure out what to do, and in the end, we did.

On May 27, I got on a plane and flew to Tokyo. All of my new friends asked about my engagement ring, and I told them all about my fiancee. When I came home to visit at the end of the summer term, we finalized the plans for our wedding in December at the end of the winter term. We would be married on December 28, two years after Ken had promised me if we both got into Stanford, we would be married.

Richard A. DeCristofaro c/o Frank Yeean Chan ([email protected])