By Amy White
The Texas Catholic

For Prince of Peace Catholic Community parishioners Richard and Sara Cusick, their 50-year love story begins with a letter—not a love letter exactly, but a letter that would prompt their love story together.

At the time they met, Richard was a Boston native studying at Notre Dame University; and Sara, who grew up in Dallas, was studying at St. Mary’s College nearby. Although the two shared mutual friends, they didn’t know each other well. That changed midway through college, after Sara received a letter from Richard in the mail.

The letter came the summer before Sara and Richard’s junior year of college. Sara had decided to stay home from St. Mary’s the next semester to care for her family during a turbulent time. Richard, hearing the news from a friend, decided that writing a friendly letter to Sara would be the right thing to do.

“I really didn’t know her. She was buddies with my roommate,” Richard recalled. “I wrote her the letter, because I felt bad for her.”

The letter said that Sara would be missed at school and offered help if she needed it. Richard signed it “Yours in St. Ed’s,” a reference to his college dormitory.

“I got a letter in the mail, and I looked at the corner and I said, ‘Who in the world is that?’” Sara laughed. “I thought to myself, what a nice thing.”

Moved by Richard’s kindness, Sara tucked the letter in her suitcase and put the suitcase away until she was able to return to St. Mary’s.

Setting the foundation
Upon her return to campus in January 1974, Sara had the letter in hand and a mission in mind.

“The first thing I did was take the letter out and hop on the shuttle and go over to Notre Dame; and I found him,” Sara said. “It was cold and snowy, and we talked and talked and talked; and then we saw each other, and we talked more.”

The two got to know each other during several long conversations over the course of the next two months. That March, Sara decided to pop an important question.

“I asked him if he wanted to get married,” she said. After considering the proposal, Richard agreed.

“I think people find it difficult to believe that you could know right away; but when you see someone who has kindness and dependability and concern for someone he doesn’t even know,” Sara said, referencing the letter, “I just wasn’t willing to wait around once I found him.”

The two were married in a small ceremony at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Notre Dame, Ind., on August 24, 1974, the Saturday before their senior year of college began.

Those early days of marriage were challenging, the couple recalled. The two had to adjust to life together and to the many changes that came their way, including graduation and the beginning of their small family. Richard joined the Marine Corps, which required the couple to move and sometimes to be apart for stretches of time.

Even amidst these challenges, however, the couple stayed committed and worked through the difficulties.

“We made it through,” Richard said. “That pretty much set the foundation. So, any other situations that popped up, we had worked together to work our way through.”

One way the couple stayed connected was through letters. “When he was overseas, he’d be gone and would write,” Sara shared. “I would always keep a letter in my purse, because I knew he had touched it.”

The golden anniversary
This August, the Cusicks celebrate 50 years of marriage. Although much has changed for the couple over the last half century—careers, family, location—Richard and Sara’s commitment to each other and to their shared mission has remained.

“You need to have the same vision of where your life is going… and you have to say we’re just sticking it out,” Sara said. “We wanted a family. We loved God. We loved each other. We were on the same road.”

Richard agreed.

“The big thing is, you’ve got to make a good choice; and I was fortunate—I made a great choice, and it’s worked out well,” he said. “We’ve worked together as a team through the normal issues that you go through over the years and even the very difficult ones. You’ve just got to have that commitment.”

As the couple reflected on that first letter—and the many following it—Sara wondered at the big impact a small act of kindness could have.

“I think it was meant to be. I never would have had him on my radar, so to speak, if he had not written that letter,” she said. “The little things we do in life can change the whole rest of our lives.”

Sara still has that first letter; and she plans to chronologically arrange the hundreds of letters that the two have written to each other over their fifty years as “a journal of our lives”—their love story in letters.

Editor’s note: Richard and Sara Cusick are one of more than 90 couples who celebrated their 50th anniversary at the annual Diocese of Dallas Golden Anniversary Mass celebrated by Bishop Edward J. Burns on Aug. 17 at the National Shrine Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe.