The tale is longer than you might expect, but worth hearing. It highlights the remarkable, enduring power in a simple but determined agreement between two people who rooted their love in rooting for each other. Grace and John first met in the offices of a 2010 Iowa political campaign, with Grace having been hired as Finance Director. Through tears on the steering wheel in the parking lot of a HyVee food store in the Midwest January deep freeze, she feared having made a terrible mistake and asked God what he thought he was doing. John was wrapping up a long stint in campaign politics and state government service as a candidate and staffer, nursing the after effects of a lifestyle featuring casual noncompliance with apparently as many societal expectations as possible. Having moved to a starter home literally at the city limit, he was isolating less and starting the first steps on the road to stability. A life with real resources free from the expenses of prior and future family health needs seemed possible due to changes in federal and state law -- though still a long, long way off. In and around Des Moines’ East Village they snuck away for dates anytime the long campaign days permitted it, sharing a kiss on the curb of the trendy coffee shop in the shadow of the Statehouse. John was smitten, spewing irrational nonsense that included a reference to marriage on the 3rd date. Grace let him believe her denials of his requests to come up to her apartment arose from genteel Southern manners and not the seemingly perpetual need to tidy up a bit. He showed her around the Capitol, the city and then the state. She regaled him with tales of twentysomething D.C. life and culture. Each decided the other was on the same wavelength about just about everything, and besides way more interesting than anybody else around. But it was the funny that kept them both coming back – from the very start, inside jokes and nicknames for people and things, a shared history of the banal elevated to hilarious significance. She had a blog of this stuff, after all, and wrote and spoke like the Nora Ephron characters in all the big-budget romcoms. They were in on it all together, just the two of them. And, they would need all the humor they could get. Settling in Iowa with someone older and with seemingly wobbly-at-best prospects didn’t expand Grace’s fan base. Forming a brand-new household would take everything John could think of doing to generate income, and for years to come. But they committed to each other, right there against the backdrop of the campaign insanity. They decided to work together with the idea that instead of staffing others, it was possible to operate with real agency and get back to being the principal characters in their own lives. There was one purposeful detour in which John signed up for a gratifying but unsuccessful campaign in 2014, and then decided to hang ‘em up. (Continues in Part II)

When Grace wasn’t shopping for clothes and accessories (at bargains, always!) online, she worked the animal rescue sites and proved John was wrong when he said she could never find two bonded-buddy red shorthaired Dachshunds who were rescues. “We have Doxies,” the text read, and that’s how John became a dog person. There were adventures: resort vacations, surgeries, falling trees, wiener dogs climbing trees, marathons, college reunions and trips to Kansas City to see Your World Champion Kansas City Chiefs. Grace managed a business in jewelry that resulted in her 15 minutes of reality television fame. John launched a career in the health insurance industry where he remains after nearly a decade. They said goodbye to grandparents, worked to keep up a relationship with John’s son, Carter, now 27, as he moved through high school and college, and got to know and enjoy each other’s parents. And they did all the growth things – the books, meetings, conferences – there’s never a break from the personal growth agenda. Grace led the way with a home purchase in the historic Drake neighborhood where they have lived – and somehow, now, work? - for the past 6 years. They streamed their way through the pandemic time (The Last Dance, anyone?), and were among those who experienced great joy at being locked in with their favorite person. They came out the other side ready to make it official. Still, there was one more campaign - this time hers! – that didn’t get the most votes, but did relaunch Grace as a sought-after political finance professional in addition to her personal styling services. And then it was 2023. Reader, it’s obvious why he wants to be with her: the enthusiasm, creativity, determination and woo-woo factor light up every room she enters. Her striking beauty goes with everything. The continuing mystery is why she chose to keep at it with him all this time. She would say it’s the consistency, reliability, support, wisdom and advice he provides. Friends have been exposed to this spiel, and let’s just say skepticism persists. At the core of it all is the truth that we do recover -- even the hopeless political junkies. And somehow, one day at a time, 14 years had passed when John set up a nondescript Tuesday night dinner at their go-to occasion restaurant, Django (utilizing a laughably flimsy premise.) He walked Grace across the street to the sculpture garden, knelt in the shadow of Richard Indiana’s LOVE piece and made the least surprising proposal in recent American history somehow a surprise. There they were! Still at it, still making a great team, still within sight distance of the Statehouse, though a little further away. “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson.