Chris, me, John & Vicki at our wedding in Manzanita, July 23, 2022.
You’ve heard the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’ (the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other) – well, this is one of those situations! It starts with Chris Elsenbach, who was my deceased husband, Steve’s best friend. They were friends since childhood and that bond only grew stronger as they matured into young professionals.
Steve was Chris’s Best Man when he married Vicki in Hawaii (which is where Steve proposed to me and Katie, then almost four years old), and then Chris was Steve’s Best Man when we got married in 1997. Ironically, our boys were only born 8 months apart. Steve and Chris often spoke on the phone as we all had busy lives, but we’d periodically get together in Gearhart on the Oregon coast, where both families had places. We never missed a July 4th weekend in Gearhart – complete with the old fashioned parade of bikes, wagons, scooters, dogs, kids, their parents and fireworks to top off the holiday! Such fond memories!
Chris and Vicki’s son, Ian, went to St. Thomas More Catholic School in SW Portland and so did John’s kids (his son, Nicho, was a classmate/teammate of Ian’s). Chris and John got to really know each other by coaching their boys’ basketball teams 3rd through 8th grade, plus on some travel teams as well. John and his wife eventually got divorced when the boys were in high school.
We were all beyond devastated when we tragically lost Steve on December 11th, 2012. Chris and Vicki reached out to us immediately and were incredibly supportive of Katie, Alex and me. Over the years when Alex was in high school, they would come to several of his football games each season. During half time at a West Linn home game in early November, as Vicki looked on, Chris casually asked me if I had thought about dating (it was coming up on the 4th year of Steve being gone). I said ‘yes, I had….but I feel strange talking to you about it’ – he was Steve’s best friend after all! We all laughed – but Chris assured me that he ‘talked to Steve’ and that he wanted me to be happy! Both Chris and Vicki asked what’s important to me as it relates to the type of person I’d consider dating, and I said they just need to be a ‘good human’! They smiled and said they have the perfect person in mind and could they pass my name and number along to this friend – I said ’of course.’ Although I was meeting a stranger, I knew he was well-vetted, so I felt very good about the situation!
Chris then reached out to his friend John to tell him about me and pass on my contact info. John wasn’t interested in Chris’s suggestion of a double date with Vicki and him; John just called me up Monday morning to introduce himself and asked if I’d like to meet after work. As it turns out, we only worked two blocks away from each other. We were both a bit nervous, but enjoyed our conversation. We discovered that we would each be rooting for the opposite team in the upcoming Civil War game that weekend, so it was only fitting that we agreed if the Ducks won, John would buy dinner on our next date, or if the the Beavs won, Carla would buy John dinner. Unfortunately, the Beavs pulled off a win that year and I bought him dinner. We had a great connection and that was the first of many Civil War bets between us!
After John proposed to me in Manzanita in June of 2019, we knew immediately that we wanted to get married on the beach in Manzanita. If it wasn’t for Chris and Vicki, we would not have met each other. We really wanted them to get ordained, so they could do us the honor of ‘marrying us.’ That is why this is one of my favorite pictures of our wedding day!
