Coup de foudre

Renee Fallon

On her 25th wedding anniversary, Biology and STEM teacher Renee Fallon found herself seated opposite her husband Jim Fallon at an extravagant restaurant. At the time, Jim had been undergoing chemotherapy for a severe form of cancer — his chances of survival were 50 percent. For the past year, Renee had taken care of Jim throughout the treatment, and the illness had placed a physical and emotional toll on both of them. 

At the end of their meal, the restaurant’s maître d’ asked the couple if they wanted to sit by the fire. Renee was thankful for the opportunity to allow the effects of the alcohol she’d drank at dinner to wear off before driving home. As soon as she sat down, the maître d’ approached the couple with an envelope. Inside the envelope was Renee and Jim’s original wedding invitation, which Jim had preserved for 25 years, and the arrangements for the couple to go scuba diving in the Galapagos Islands the next year. 

“Understand that there’s a lot of history behind this,” Renee said. “I’m a biology teacher, right, so when he met me, he promised to take me to the Galapagos [Islands]. He made those arrangements while he was on chemo, he got us the best cabin we could have in the most expensive dive boat — [it was a] fantastic trip, and he had pictures of the boat, the trip [and] our cabin. [He’d] taken pictures of them and put them in our actual wedding invitation.”

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Twenty six years earlier, as the highway between Berkeley and Mountain View flew by outside her window, Renee sat back and smiled to herself. She glanced over at the man next to her. They’d met at the high impact aerobics class her roommate taught, and after a couple of conversations after class and group outings, he’d asked her out to dinner. He lived in Berkeley and she lived in Mountain View, and after arriving at her house 30 minutes late, he’d insisted that they take her car because his car would not make it to and from Berkley a second time. Now, as they sped back from their date at a Thai restaurant in Berkeley, she was struck by a sensation that even years later, she wouldn’t quite be able to articulate.

“I don’t know how the hell I can explain [it],” Renee said. “The French have a really good saying for it. They call it coup de foudre instead of love at first sight. Coup de foudre doesn’t really translate, but the best translation I can come up with is that it’s sort of an iron-fisted blow.”

There was no second date. From that first meal together, Renee either got home and left a message on Jim’s answering machine, or got home and played the message that he’d left on hers. “We never really talked about it,” Fallon said. “We just were.” 

A year and a half later, Jim proposed — but not with a ring. Jim knew that Renee didn’t want a ring — not only did she find the entire practice of trading diamonds unethical and somewhat meaningless, but she was also a scientist, and a diamond on her finger would quickly become a nuisance, tearing through her gloves and interfering with her lab work. 

Instead, Jim decided to borrow a tradition from a country 8,000 miles away — he would propose with Nepalese marriage beads. Renee had travelled extensively throughout India and Nepal, and one of the stories she’d told Jim about Nepal was how, instead of rings, marriage was signified by thick strands of colorful glass marriage beads. Renee’s parents had been travelling in India when Jim decided to propose and he contacted them through telegram. He sent them $400 for the marriage beads — which ended up costing 50 cents — and asked for her hand in marriage. 

“I don’t remember the first time he said I love you, and I can’t really tell you when I first knew I loved him,” Renee said. “But for my husband and I, it was as close to love at first sight as you can get. He says, and we didn’t talk about this until we’d been married for a couple of years, but he says that he felt the same way. We knew we were getting married after that first car ride.”