Rob and I believe that we must have been meant for each other, but God was playing with the timing.
My friend from high school was roommates with his best friend when they were at the Air Force Academy; if I’d visited, we’d have met. Years later, when I was at college, I attended a Star Trek convention in Denver, where my friend and I won first place for a poem about Klingon eating habits. I had thought of putting a note on the announcement board to the effect of “meet the authors,” but decided that sounded arrogant. However, Rob was also at that convention, loved the poem, clipped it out, and searched unsuccessfully for us all weekend. One note, and we’d have met then. (He still had the poem when we met two years later.)
My father met him a year before I did—on the
wrong side of a speeding ticket! Dad was a Colorado State Trooper with a
sense of humor. When Rob graduated from the Academy, he was speeding
through Pueblo, not a care in the world, radar detector on and oblivious
to the traffic around him—including the marked police car that passed
him going the other way, turned around, and got right on his tail. My
dad noticed the radar detector and realized what an opportunity for fun
he had! He clocked him using a visual method, then got in close, turned
his radar gun to full gain and set it off at the same time he hit the
lights and siren. In Rob’s car, the radar went from dead silent to
screaming just as siren and flashing lights sounded right behind him.
He hit the roof. Literally; my father insists he saw it bend. Rob was a
very polite, chagrined, and scared second lieutenant when he signed for his ticket.
When
I came home for vacation, my dad told me the story. Again. And
again. Any time that summer that he could twist the conversation to
young men, cars, the academy, work, noise…you name it…he told the
story. I had it memorized.
I graduated, got my commission in the Air Force and went to training in San Angelo. Rob was stationed in El Dorado Missile Warning Station not far away. His friend, Jeff, was also in training, so Rob told him, “Be a pal and set me up with some of these girls.” When Jeff learned how much I loved Star Trek, he called Rob, said, “Talk to this woman!” and handed me the phone. “I said, ‘Live long and prosper!’” He said, “I’ll be right over!”
A few days later, a group of us were going to Mexico—or so we thought. Rob and I arrived to find the rest of the group had ditched us and we had to drive down together. On the way, we got to talking about speeding. Guess what story I heard? When I asked him if he remembered the officer’s name, Rob said, “No, but I’ll never forget his face.”
I pulled out a photo of my dad in uniform.
Silence, then “noooo!” Which was the same response my dad gave us when we called him that night.
Rob knew I was The One the day we met. I knew ten days after that. We had met in January got engaged in March. The Air Force sent me to Italy in May, but I came back in November, got married and went back to Italy. We had a two-year-extended honeymoon, seeing each other 10 days every 4 months. Twenty-one years and four kids later, we love each other more than ever.
Our love is indeed living long and prospering!
Rob and Karina Fabian married November 3, 1990 at the Air Force Academy Chapel in Colorado Springs. The priest asked everyone to “bless” them with the Vulcan peace sign and the phrase “Live Long and Prosper.” They’ve been doing so ever since.
