By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
November 14, 1999
The timing couldn’t have been worse for Keir and Marya Graff. Raised in Missoula, Mont., Keir was ready to move away from home.
But then his friendship with Marya turned into romance. And Marya – who had left St. Paul, Minn., to attend college in Montana – didn’t want to leave her new hometown.
“When we began dating, I was in my mid-20s and definitely ready to leave Missoula,” says Keir, 30. “I had gone to school out of state and spent some time in England. I wanted to move to Austin, Texas, and live there. It just sounded like a great place to be. I wanted Marya to love Austin, too. So I asked her, `Do you want to go on a road trip with me to Austin?’ ”
She said, “Yes.”
While in Austin that May 1995, she said, “Yes,” to a more important question.
“We had been dating for about six weeks,” recalls Keir, a writer. “We were sitting on the banks of the river watching the bats fly out from underneath a bridge. She’s totally unflappable about stuff like that. Something seized me, and I said, `Will you marry me?’ She hesitated for like a second. And then she said, `Yes.’ We were both a little shocked.”
About that hesitation . . . Marya insists that she didn’t have to think her answer over.
“I was just dumbfounded,” says Marya, 27 – a drafter for an engineering firm. “I wasn’t expecting it at all. I knew that we were very comfortable with each other, but marriage was the furthest thing from my mind. . . . I wasn’t one of those girls who dreamed about their weddings all the time.”
Their friendship began two years before they started dating. Marya was dating a man who worked with Keir. They’d often go on double dates together.
“We’d always end up in the kitchen talking about things together,” Keir says. “Eventually, we each ended our (respective) relationships. I didn’t ask her out right away. But some months later, when it seemed like it was OK, I invited her out. We went to see `Crimson Tide’ and shot some pool afterwards. The timing was just really bad, though, ’cause I was all set to move to Austin.”
She says, “I didn’t want to move. In fact, I never wanted to leave Missoula. I was pretty much set there. I had a good job and nice friends. But then Keir came along.”
The couple married Oct. 7, 1995, in Montana. A few months later, after visiting a friend in Chicago, they opted against Austin and moved here, where they live in a downtown high-rise with a gorgeous view of the city.
“I guess we sound like a madcap couple,” Keir says, laughing. “But we’re really not. We just knew what was right for our lives and seized the moment.”
