Chapter One: There IS a Perfect Fit for You
Let us embark on a wonderful journey of hope.
Through breathtaking stories of romance, incredible love stories that have united or reunited people just like you, I am hopeful that you''ll see your own life in a fresh new light, filled with renewed hope that your perfect love is not nearly as distant as you thought.
Through the Six Key Words to Successful Relationships that unfold in the stories of others, I believe that you will clearly see that you are on a path to finding your soul mate. Your soul mate may be already near. Perhaps you are already in a relationship that has not yet matured to soul mate status. But I am certain of this: in the grand design of your life, there is a perfect love for you.
How can I be certain?
I have spoken with hundreds of people, who, just like you, have asked "Is there someone out there for me?" People who found the answer said: "Yes."
I have also been in your shoes.
SQuire and Louise -- my shoes fit you
I had never said "I Love You" without some twinge of ignorance, way down deep.
"Do I really know what love is?" I asked myself.
"Am I in love, infatuation, or just a desire to be in love?"
On those rare occasions when I entertained the big question -- "Is this your soul mate?" -- my head was mute.
Married twice, twice divorced. That was pretty much the answer.
Yes, I was indeed ignorant about love.
Attending church alone on Sunday mornings, I tried unsuccessfully to submerge my envy for a loving couple who always sat three pews ahead of me. I watched the way they would position themselves, shoulders touching, turning, smiling at each other; and the way they seemed to communicate through a secret language of eyes and body known only to themselves. Through the crowd of departing parishioners I''d watch them leaving church holding hands, providing a wonderful model for their teenaged children, not to mention the rest of us.
That couple made me realize that even though I had been married most of my adult life, I had spent years imprisoned in loneliness. I deeply wanted what they had.
So do you.
Let me assure you: there is hope.
What I thought would never happen in my lifetime -- that I would be the prince who someday placed the slipper on the foot of Cinderella -- did happen! And when the perfect piece fell into place in the jigsaw puzzle of my life it arrived with a clarity comparable to every soul mate couple I have interviewed. One partner or the other almost always says, "That''s the man [or the girl] I''m going to marry." They had found the one -- and they knew immediately.
When I found myself together with Louise -- thirty years after I''d serendipitously played a role in her getting into television -- I knew!
Even better, so did she!
The first time I ever saw Louise DuArt, she burst onstage at Madison Square Garden with a green face and a long nose with a wart on it.
"I''ve since had that removed," she now says, going for the joke. What should I expect? She''s a comedienne.
But back then, Louise was Witchiepoo in the Kroffts''
H. R. Puf-n-stuf road show. She had that special stage presence that reached out and almost grabbed the audience by the lapels. She had the makings of a star!
Not long after that I was working with the Kroffts on a Saturday morning block of programs under my charge at ABC. We''d come up with the idea to create a rock group that would wrap around all of our shows. When it came to casting a comedienne, I offered, "What about the girl who played Witchiepoo?"
That was all I did. No big deal in my mind. But, from Louise''s perspective, that was her first big break in TV.
Weeks later I met her for the first time, for a moment or two, at an advertiser function, and over the course of the next three decades briefly saw her at ABC affiliate events or backstage at Good Morning America. During each of those encounters she was married. So was I.
Several years passed.
My second marriage had broken up, and I was running a cable TV network in Washington, D.C. I had traveled to New York City to pick up my son, Grant, where he was living with his mother, to take him on a long anticipated, fun-filled weekend in Canada coinciding with a meeting I had scheduled in Toronto. But, at the last minute, the meeting was canceled. The trip had to be called off, and my son was upset.
"What do you say we stay in New York and take in a Broadway musical?" I said, trying to broker some enthusiasm.
I have learned that kids with developmental challenges, as Grant has, seem to universally enjoy music even if they are unable to read and write.
Grant''s brightness was restored when I spotted a musical in The New York Times called Dreamstuff and exclaimed that the star -- Louise DuArt -- was an old friend.
"Hey, maybe we can meet her backstage!"
His gloom dissipated.
After the show Grant and I met with Louise and her manager, Howie Rapp, for a cappuccino. We jibber jabbered, catching up on intervening years. When I inquired about her husband, her reply startled me.
"He left me for another woman," she said.
"Oh. I''m...going through a transition, myself...." I stuttered, covering, as best I could, the skipping of my heart.
Perhaps my heart was just coming to realize what my mind had been denying in every previous encounter with Louise over the three previous decades. For, in retrospect, every time I''d run into her, I''d had this uplifting feeling -- the kind you have just after a thunderstorm, when the air is filled with ions -- soaring my spirits.
I was wondering what to make of those feelings, when a godwink became apparent. A sign of reassurance.
"What a godsend you came today," she said. "You just saw our last show. It closed."
"Really? Grant and I were supposed to be in Canada today," I quickly rejoined, "but our trip was canceled at the last minute."
We''ve since marveled at that godwink -- the divine timing that caused our paths to intersect on that day -- and how our lives continue to be monitored and mapped from above on a sort-of grand Global Positioning System that we have playfully renamed "God''s Positioning System."
Later on, I found out that Louise had called her mother after our post-theater coffee, and said, "Today I met the man I''m going to marry."
A short while later, that''s exactly what happened -- Louise and I were married -- soul mates cast in a fairy tale called "Happily Ever After."
Why did it take so long to find the perfect fit in the jigsaw puzzle of my life?
I have no idea. But Louise and I are clear about this truth we learned the hard way: that jamming together two pieces of a puzzle -- no matter how much we wanted them to fit, in a moment of desire, or out of a false sense of obligation, never resulted in true happiness.
As Louise and I look at our lives through the long lens of time, we have to admit that God has had a lot of patience with us -- and our choices. Perhaps it is only fair that we be expected to have patience with Him.
In the end, patience paid off.
Louise and I are perfect for each other.
And when the fit is perfect, life is perfect.
Don''t expect it to be easy
We tend to forget that even in fairy tales, finding your perfect love is not easy. Cinderella had to clean a lot of chimneys and endure a lot of barbs from her stepsisters before she got to go to the ball. And even then, there was great uncertainty -- she had no idea whether anyone at the ball would give her a second glance, let alone the prince. The ball was followed by the uncertainty of not really knowing if she would ever connect with the prince again. After all, he never took her phone number or email address.
Patience -- that word you hated as a kid when your parents uttered it -- is something we really do have to call upon.
That is particularly true if your parents are still involved in your life, trying to hurry you along toward a relationship, as occurred in the following story.
The other Hillary and Bill
Hillary Kimmelman and Bill Solomon invited Hillary and Bill Clinton to their wedding. The president and first lady couldn''t make it. Not in person, anyway.
But, let''s start at the beginning.
When Hillary Kimmelman broke up with her boyfriend, her view of the future was clear: "I''m thirty-two. My life is over. I''m never going to find the perfect person."
Meanwhile, Bill Solomon had his share of dysfunctional relationships, also leaving him with a pessimistic outlook on the future.
They did not know each other.
They also did not know that forty years earlier their parents had been high school friends who had double-dated in Long Beach, Long Island. But when Hillary''s father Larry, and Bill''s mother Barbara, went off to college, they lost touch. Larry settled in Boston. Barbara remained on Long Island.
One day someone sent Hillary''s father an article from the local Long Beach paper. It was a cooking column featuring a lady who raved about a salmon dish that she''d lovingly termed, "My son Bill''s Salmon Recipe."
Larry smiled when he recognized the lady as Barbara Solomon, his high school friend. He tracked her down by phone and soon t
