Jeanmarie Badar and Jim Kauffman

00:02 I am Jeanne Marie Vader and I'm 57 years old. Today is Saturday, June 6th, 2021. I am an ass in Virginia, and my partner is Jim Kauffman. And he is my husband. Your knee doesn't matter and this is students are 21. And our station is still location, Aston virgin and the name of my of your partner. And my partner is my wife.

01:00 Your relationship you already know.

01:05 So ready to start celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary on July 4th, that's not unique at all. Lot of people got married had an eighth anniversary and a lot of people I suppose were married on July 4th. As one of my friends said, yeah, the other is unused.

01:56 So why don't you start with like the first time that, you know, midnight? So I was my mid-fifties. You said I was a professor of education at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and I was told by the woman, who is in the director of teacher education that I should go out to Walker Middle School and see, this fantastic teacher who was doing exactly what I tried to teach people to do. So, I went out to Walker Middle School and saw Jean-Marie teaching a special class.

02:50 For emotionally. Disturbed kids.

02:53 And I was very impressed by what I saw my her teaching and her teaching assistant, young woman named. Jen McCullough was not my assistant. So we ended up together. Jean-Marie and Jen and I are was published about her special class. So what did you think of me when I came out there? Well, all I remember, I remember getting a call from somebody. I had never heard of before from UVA. Who said I want to come and visit your class and observant. I actually, we actually had an observer's very often. So it was no big deal. I was like, yeah. Course you can come anytime and so we arranged that and then you came and saw this.

03:53 Old guy I was in my early thirties and I just did what we always do and I you know, I can really remember kind of thinking. What is he? Like, what is he? What is he thinking? No idea, but I just know that it was I was really nervous. And because I knew even though I didn't really know who you were. I had Googled you enough to find out that you were a big name in special education will then after that after we and we had a dinner like this operation. You took Jen and the out to dinner. Thank you. And, you know, again, I'm nervous. I'm like

04:50 This really important guy who everybody knows and at one point and Asian restaurant. I remember just at one point in the conversation turning to look at you and seeing that you had taken the orange wedge. That was a garnish on your plate and put it in your mouth as cheats like little kids do and just looked at me and smiled was an orange smile. And I was like, oh my, this is not at all. What I expected from the super sophisticated, Super Famous kind of, but it was, it was when I realized you weren't all that old. At least, not in spirit. And then after that, you encouraged me to enter the. Hope program at at UVA, which I did. And so, you know, less than a year later. I was there sitting in your

05:50 Doctoral seminar, and you were also my advisor. Is, it was recommended by two other got real students, omation Wu and yang Chin Chin who were both companies and it was a Taiwanese restaurant. Are they considered a very good, but their favorite one.

06:19 Yeah, I remember doing that. And so are giggling and laughing. And I was married, and my wife was there, too. She was also a special ed teacher is very good one, but I'm telling you, I never saw anybody as skillful at you in dealing with really difficult kids. She was good.

06:45 But as I said, you were the best teacher, I ever observed and I've observed quite a few teachers. I had at that point.

06:58 Probably see many many over the 20-year. Where where I was at UVA before you came into our dock program and I wanted very much for you to be a docks to I thought, yo, this is the kind of person we need in a Ph.D program. When I, when I first met your wife Patty, she was just one of those people that I just fell in love with her. I just was like another mom to me. She was wonderful to be funny and Goofy and we could talk teaching forever and ever and ever. So that was really, it was just a really cool evening and entered. So I ended up in your doctoral program and took 3 years of studies. I got my Ph.D.

07:55 During that time and even after that and then for a long time after that, we really developed a friendship. You and Patty. I was married at the time to Steve very happily married and we just really the four of us had so much so much to talk about and so much in common, and we would go out at least once a month. We would have a dinner together, that would last hours, and hours and hours, laughing and and and talking and interesting Lee. I think it's it's kind of neat that my husband Steve who was not a teacher. He was an engineer. Normally. He really don't like to go out with my friends who were in education because he was like, all you guys do is talk about education School.

08:56 Going out with you and Daddy, Steve loves that, he really look forward to that and there were many conversations that he and I had that where we said, you know.

09:08 That's our vision for what we want. Our marriage to be someday. We want to be like Jim and Patty. They're so in love, and they're so playful and fun and caring for each other.

09:22 Yeah, we're Patty really like Steve and so did I and we always look forward to these times together and had he was

09:36 She was my soul mate. I called her sometimes my

09:46 Shirley wife because nobody doesn't like Sara Lee and not letting you know, he didn't like she was a wonderful person. She was very, very easy to like.

10:05 PSG in 2001 and we did our friendship just continue laying down after that. I want to add to that as your doctoral student. I I remember just

10:19 Being really, really, really admiring you and thinking that, you know, when I read things that you have written to professional articles that you had written. And I thought to myself, this is the first time I'm reading something in a professional Journal. That I feel like this guy gets it, if you really understand what's going on. I was so impressed with you and the way you think and the way your mind works and then, you know, add to that the fact that you were Goofy and and funny and you weren't they were very comfortable. Like I I was so comfortable coming to your office and say, you know, saying whatever I needed to say and I thought that was what I was really fortunate cuz I've talked to people who had nothing like that with a relationship with their advisers over my 33 years or so at UVA. I mean, I had quite a few.

11:19 There's a top-tier students you were in that top tier and one of the best students I've ever had. But this one is really going to go places in Special Air. This woman really knows how to teach this one really knows stuff that most people don't get. So I think the feeling was mutual and I admired your teaching very much. I admired you as a person I wanted your husband. I just thought this is really great. This is the way it should be. So what's a ruse

12:11 I was so in love with Patti and you will sting the week. It just never occurred to me. If somebody had said to me the last time that the four of us hadn't had, one of our monthly dinners together was November of 2011. And you had, you had forewarned me that when we can't, when we met that, you had some real concerns about some that something was going on with Patty, and you had forewarned me. Like, you're going to notice, you're going to be able to tell and sure enough dinner if something was wrong with cat in the scheme on.

13:04 Relatively suddenly because I remember in

13:11 October.

13:13 Of 2011 Patty. And I were hiking in the mountains in Arizona, where you'd gone to Arizona, to go to a conference, that you had attended one that I've gone to for a long time and Patty, and I always love to go to that convention in Arizona and go into the mountains and do hiking. So,

13:45 I thought something is a little strange there and a psychiatrist friend of mine. Said he noticed at that time in late, October, a little difficulty in word finding and she seemed tired and so on.

14:07 But I had no idea that there was something seriously wrong and by November it was clear that something is wrong and we needed to consult neurologist about it and we did that and

14:27 And that she had.

14:31 So neurological problem, but it wasn't clear what it was and I think you know something is going on that we do not we don't know what it is. Was her memory was poor. Hey, she could still come and amazing thing to me is after that dinner.

14:59 She said Steve looked at me.

15:04 And I could tell there were tears in his eyes.

15:09 And I said Steve who because we have more than one friend, Steve, and she said, Steve Furness Furness.

15:19 Was it that time a professor at UCLA? So I knew that there was some confusion there and she went downhill rapidly. It was

15:34 And we consulted the best neurologists. We could find at UVA and they all said, you got plenty of time. Don't worry. This is, It's a neurological problem, but you didn't worry and so we didn't. But she's I mean,

15:57 By Christmas, it was clear that she was diagnosed with ALS Lou Gehrig's Disease or, you know, sclerotic condition in the brain and

16:12 So we put our house up for sale, sold it in a week for cash, bought an apartment at Westminster Canterbury of the Blue Ridge or wcd are a retirement village and

16:30 We made arrangements to move in there in mid-January at that time. Patty were still doing laundry and cooking and sewing although it was clear that something was wrong with it. And the people at this retirement community said, well.

16:55 If she can go for 6 months without needing assisted living, she can be admitted as a regular a person, like you just a resident. And we thought, what we have a chance at that.

17:14 A week later. It was clear. She needed assisted living right now. So we said get Assisted Living ready. That meant replacing the carpet because Patti was allergic to dust mite.

17:34 So, we had a week.

17:37 To get Assisted Living ready?

17:41 Before they could get it ready. It was clear. She needed. 24/7 care. So, she was admitted to the Health Care Unit directly and

17:59 Died in fewer than a hundred days. The reason I say fewer than a hundred Aces. I know that we had long-term care insurance for her. But the first hundred days till she died before.

18:16 The hundred days were. She never got to access any of that. Long-term care insurance that you would pay.

18:26 Patty died in March is on your dad's for your dad's birthday.

18:39 To put it, mildly devastated.

18:45 How do you always said that she had said for me for many years. I'm going to die first and I thought you say that you don't know that you and I have talked about, this is how you don't know when you're going to die. So yeah, so I'm going to die first. But she did and very unfortunate person, Whitney still communicate a lot through emails and phone calls.

19:27 So I knew I knew that you were going through a really hard time and I talked about that and thought about that a lot and

19:36 You know, and then when she died, you know, we we did you eat. There was no like funeral to honor her and so, you know, we we did what we could as good friends, but we will wait. We also gave you space thinking that kind of person and it was about a month. I think it was a month after we, we you. And I decided that it would be really nice to have another dinner and it was just going to be the two of us. Because at that point, my husband had gotten a new job about an hour away from here and it was kind of a lovely. In our marriage because we had these two separate homes, one in the city of Richmond and then our country home here in Afton. Where were in the Blue Ridge.

20:36 Mountains and very virile and it was really a neat time and we had been married almost 20 years at that point and just having space was cool. But also, like having that wonderful opportunity. I see on the road every weekend. But anyways, this was enrichment, the most agreeable date was a week night. And so it was just me, the two of us. And so we had dinner at our one of our favorite places nearby. And I just remember from that night.

21:15 How?

21:19 Cuz I don't know that I've ever been near someone who was in so much to me. It was so it was difficult. It was, it was difficult to try to be a friend, to try to Knowlton, to send know what to say, or how the Africans, do you cried and cried and cried. And, I know people probably walked by staring at us and just wondering what it was. One of the saddest evenings of my life. I thought it was just too painful on my cell your pain. And then when I came home, I called Steve as we we, we talk every evening and I told him about it and we both we both cried a bit together and just just we came to

22:01 The conclude, like we were at some point in our conversation, we said

22:07 It's so hard to imagine the pain that you would feel losing a spouse that you love very much and we were a young couple at that point and we have definitely had our ups and down in counseling. It wasn't like a breeze, our marriage, but we worked so hard on it and we love each other very, very much. And so like just envisioning how it would feel to lose. The other was really sad and painful. So then I take over a little bit here, two weeks after our dinner at our favorite restaurant.

22:56 She's had a terrible accident.

22:58 It happens when he was in Richmond, and I was here an hour away.

23:07 It was it was very it was all very strange because I didn't know right away. I had had some really difficult things happen to me at work and that night on my way home.

23:26 Crash. My Treatise might my car into a tree and totaled it. I was not heard fortunately, but my last conversation was Steve was calling him after I crashed my car and telling him about it and telling him how sorry I was. And he and he was as usual in a supportive and don't worry. It's all okay, and we'll take care of it. And, you know, don't just don't worry. And I went to bed that night not worth trying not to worry and then I couldn't reach him and that evening. I couldn't reach him. And the next day I couldn't meet you and I called his mom and his mom couldn't reach him. I was like, okay. Something is up? Steve sometimes did.

24:10 Things like we just south on at work until at like, you know that I wasn't immediately alarmed and I was trying not to be not to overreact but after a day and a half I was really strange. And so I ended up calling the Richmond police car and drive out to our house in Richmond. I don't have any transportation. So I called the police and I told him the situation, I said I would come out there right away, but I can't. And so they ask for permission to break into the home and they didn't, they found him and he had fallen down the stairs. We had bought this beautiful row house that was old and had one of those stairways that I remember from like my great grandma's house at the kinds of stairs that don't have backs on them and end the super low ceiling at the beginning you, when you first start out in Steve.

25:10 And what we think happened is that he bumped his head at the top of the stairs and then and then fell down and

25:21 He was gone and I was able to get my friends were absolutely incredible on my circle of friends. You know, I had a friend who just who likes, absolutely jump in my car will drive out there, went out there. And yeah, it had to face the reality that my young husband was only 46. What's dad and I know that a friend one, another friend who had come out to Richmond called you. She said, you want me to tell Jasmine and I was like a course, you know, she also knew you and so she was the most difficult painful awful. Of my entire life and you know, we I knew that you knew you sent me cards. You and

26:21 I think you might have even called and I didn't like I said, when I wasn't returning anybody's phone calls for about a month after that, where we didn't, we didn't see each other, but we contact. But I was pretty overwhelmed and about a month later, you invited me to have dinner at your place. At first, we talked about just having dinner somewhere and then I think we both thought about how like, this is going to be like sadness plus sadness equal super sad, and I don't know that we wanted to be in public and do. I think we mutually decided that it was better just to meet at one of her until you invited me over for dinner. Your, I didn't know at the time, but I found out later that you were tremendous, chef. And so you come to dinner for me and the first time

27:21 Yeah, I went to your home. Exactly. What 9 years ago, today, 9 years ago.

27:30 And, you know, we got together. We had dinner together. We laughed cried.

27:39 Did I mean we just we just had this evening that went on and on and on and it was wonderful and beautiful and comforting for both of us and led to us spending more more and more and more and more time together. And do you want to maybe talk about when when did your feelings first start to change and what do remember about that?

28:10 Is backing up a little. I was so in love with Patti and was so devastated by her death. I remember calling her.

28:25 Daughter Patty's daughter about a month after she died in. This is about when we had dinner and send, you know, today is the first time that I have awakened without tears in my ears, and I remember when Carla called me about Steve Steph.

28:51 I was so.

28:53 Taken aback by this. I remember that night. I was having dinner with another couple from the University. I mean, the guy was a colleague at the University and wife was it that, especially teacher.

29:11 And I remember saying to them. Can you believe Steve Vance?

29:19 The time he said it was it was so incredible. But anyway.

29:29 Months later, we ended up.

29:32 Talking a lot about death and dying and grieving each of us grieving Patty and I had been married for 25 years you and Steve for about 20 and

29:47 So it was a strange time in a way, but the more time I spend with you the more I talk to you, the more I saw and the more I wanted.

30:04 To move in with you. I mean, 71 years old and living in a retirement village funny. Yeah, 2023. Yeah. I'm either going to stay in this retirement community where you obviously didn't want to live anymore.

30:42 And take my chances.

30:45 The.

30:48 Things won't work out with Jean-Marie or do I want to move in with Jean Gris? I had to make a decision and the decision I made, which I'm glad I was.

31:03 I want to leave here. I want to live life with Tina Marie. I want to be able to talk to her and see her everyday.

31:12 So yeah, I moved in. I want to add that up again. A little bit that you don't only started to become. You. Just just feel more intimate with each other. And I too wanted. I wanted a closer relationship with you and scared, the former student who like being married to a professor real as like so cliche and so scared, right? Then, but if this is wrong, it is like one of the most serious mistakes you could ever make in your whole life, and I was very that you do, I screw it was just it was not a

32:12 Fearless sing for me. What are people going to think about this? And I'm never talking to a psychiatrist at that time that the guy that I went to following Patty's death because I was really depressed about that. And I remember talking to him about this me. So why should you care what other people think? I'm just worried about like,

32:50 Doesn't do people do this. Do do, do people. Married people who are 23 years older than they and and what like, what am I am? I just setting myself up for another sadness. Then I thought about this. So I Married Steve, never ever imagining that that she would die at age, 46 you. So you just don't know. You just never know until I just can't let that be a reason not to be with this person that I love and adore and end. So we got married, we have this beautiful private. It was just you. And I slid justice of the peace and our dogs out on our deck. Looking with a beautiful view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the background. We wrote Our Own vows. We both chose a song that we thought really spoke.

33:50 Wasn't I I know my song was.

33:54 The Sound of Music, I must have done something good. I just really, really still still to this day. I don't I don't know what I have done to deserve being in a relationship with someone like you, who is just

34:13 So kind and generous and thoughtful, and caring, and talented, and smart, and all of the things that I have ever ever wanted in a partner.

34:28 Well.

34:31 If somebody had told me when you were a duck stew.

34:38 You're going to marry her since you crazy person before our spouses. And now I feel so wonderfully privileged to have a Second. Sole Mia me. How did I go from a wonderful marriage to another? And I'm sitting in your doctoral seminar and, you know, and just really liking you liking, the fact that you were, you were kind of an older come up.

35:38 And I and II was it. So, I admired you so much, but guess what? That's going to be your thing from my imagination.

35:57 Are you Patty said that is our chances are, I'll die first talked about this. You don't know your late husband. Look at. This was two years older than I. Steve was younger than me. So I see. You're difference in the partners were married to, but where I was very, very happy with Patty and I'm very, very happy with you. So how does the old man get to be? Well, how does anybody get to be so lucky? I don't know. How much is that? You're constantly pretty much every day. You look at me at some point today.

36:52 How do I get to my girlfriend's? I'm still working. You do all the cooking and the grocery shopping.

37:11 It's, it's wonderful. And and I feel so fortunate everyday. And I I, I am constantly asking myself how I got to be so lucky. And yeah, you're probably going to die first. But, you know, I, I truly at this point. I really believe that the year having. I mean, I'm 9 years now and like I never would have imagined that and everyday with you is a treasure and I'll take as many of them as I can get.

37:52 Yeah, okay. Yeah, we're lucky he would tell us.