MY FAVORITE PERSON

It was the luckiest of days

Garth Brooks sang some really wonderful songs, but there is one that absolutely resonates with me.

It's called "Unanswered Prayers," and it has a really wonderful hook line to it:

"Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."

You bet they are. I spent an awful lot of time praying in 1979 that God could make my first wife start loving me again. He didn't, and we split up in January 1980.

I spent a lot of time praying that various relationships would work out during the 1980s, because I really didn't want to spend the rest of my life alone. But it didn't work out with Lisa McGrady in Virginia, or with Debby Steiner in Colorado or even with Hali Wechter when I came to California in 1990.

It was around that time that I became philosophical about it. I said, "All right, Lord. So she wasn't who you had in mind for me. I'll wait and hope you'll choose to show me who you do have in mind before I get too old."

Unanswered prayers? Nope. He just said, "No, not her." Then, on Sept. 12, 1992, the luckiest day of my life, I met Nicole. I was dating someone else I liked, but honestly and truly, from the first time I met Nicole, I knew she was going to be the one.

She was brilliant and beautiful, sexy and special in almost every way I can imagine. She has an amazing intellect and a wonderful heart. We were the same age, but from very different backgrounds -- she grew up in Toulouse, France, while I was, as she once called me in an exasperated moment, "100 percent American."

It didn't take us long to get together. Before September was over, we had decided we wanted to get married. On November 2nd, 52 days after we met for the first time, we went to City Hall in Los Angeles and did it.

It was the second marriage for both of us, and we have both been committed to making it work. There were a lot of adjustments at first, and we fought a lot the first year. A friend of mine once said, "Most people get to know each other and then get married. You two did it the other way around."

That's as good a way as I know to explain it. We have been together nearly 12 years, and she has been a wonderful wife in every sense of the word. She has forgiven me things I would have a hard time forgiving in someone else, and she has been 100 percent loyal to me.

She is a better wife than I am a husband, although I did turn out to be a pretty good stepfather to the two children I inherited along with my wonderful wife. They're great kids; I just kept out of their way and tried to be there when they needed me.

We have traveled to Hawaii and Tahiti together, to London, Paris and Venice. We have walked on the beaches in the south of France and on Pacific island beaches.

I love her with all my heart. She is God's miracle to me, and I hope we'll have at least another 30 years together. That way, I'll have spent half of my life with her -- the better half.

The best thing I can say about her is very simple. Nicole Jacqueline Rappaport -- rocket scientist, wife and mother -- is my favorite person in the entire world.