by Nicole Ricks

Your Alumni Editor

While in high school, Cynthia Beach spent her evenings walking the Lake Huron beach and fell in love with its silvery blue color at sunset. One night, she impulsively asked God for a man with that color of eyes.

Cynthia Beach is now married to Dave Beach, a man with silver blue eyes and the last name of Beach.

“It’s real gifts tucked in like that, that make me feel like Dave was from God,” said Cynthia Beach, assistant professor of English.

It was over a cup of coffee that Judith Fabisch, professor of English, exclaimed, “Have I got the man for you!” to Cynthia Beach.

Cynthia Beach said she told Fabsich “No thank you.” She was 28-years-old at the time and had just ended a relationship. On top of that, Dave Beach was a CU student while Cynthia Beach was a professor.

Fabisch told her all about Dave Beach anyway, including a story that made Cynthia Beach more open to the possibility of him.

Dave Beach was widowed; he had lost his first wife to cancer. When his wife was ill and losing her hair from chemotherapy, Dave Beach came in one day with his head shaved bald.

“I thought, ‘There is a man who knows about sacrificial love, and I want to meet him.’” Cynthia Beach said.

While waiting in line to register for classes, 35-year-old student Dave Beach stood awkwardly with his nephew while Fabisch said to him, “I don’t know where you are at with relationships, but there is someone I think you ought to meet.”

“I had seen her picture in the college catalog and thought she had this big, beautiful smile,” Dave Beach said. “Every time I saw her on campus, she had that same lovely smile. I knew someday I wanted to be married again; I knew that meant I would need to pick up the phone and do the dating thing again. I remember feeling like I was stepping off a precipice.”

He called Cynthia Beach in Aug. 1993 to ask her out.

“The first date was ‘eh,’” she said. “I remember coming home, petting my cat and wishing life were easier with no first dates. I really didn’t like dating. I was a shy person, and I don’t think I did dating well.”

Despite the discomfort of a first date, she said she felt safe and at ease with Dave Beach.

The turning point in their relationship happened a few months later in October during their first full-day date. Cynthia Beach said she saw a range of emotions in Dave Beach.

“I was always choosing guys who were emotionally constipated,” Cynthia Beach said. “But Dave was not that way. He could be sad or joyful, and it really intrigued me. I saw a real difference between him and the other guys I had dated.”

Cynthia Beach said Dave Beach made it clear he didn’t want to date around and was serious about their relationship.

“At first, we took it slow,” Dave Beach said. “When it started to get serious, I suggested that we not kiss unless we were married, and Cynthia agreed. That was a good decision for us. It interrupted my usual way of being with a woman I loved – it gave Cynthia room to be a professional and move gently toward being in love, then saying yes to a proposal and finally being married.”

They got married nine months later in May 1994.

Dave Beach is now an adjunct professor of psychology at CU and said it is a delight to be teaching together with his wife.

After talking about their pasts, the couple realized something astounding. In junior high, Cynthia Beach’s Sunday school teacher wanted her to begin praying for the person she would one day marry; so she did. At that same time, Dave Beach became a Christian.

“That was very significant to me,” Cynthia Beach said.

“There are moments in my life that are such a profound mystery, and convince me that, however chaotic and wild human history may be, there is a redemptive thread that holds us all together,” Dave Beach said. “That is one of them. It has been a great reassurance of God’s loving care and provision for us all. God, through Cynthia’s love for me, has brought me back to life – a metaphor of resurrection.”