By an acclaimed director that Vonne researched recently, since she's trying to build up a bit of a DVD library of Japanese films for eldest daughter's enjoyment as she pursues language studies.

It's a very Japanese film that, on its face, could easily be summed up as their version of Albert Brooks' "Defending Your Life" (although that seems to trivialize it quite a bit). Also got a bit of "Ghost" in its subtle romanticism.

Here's the trick: a crew of bureaucrats work an afterlife stint where they process a couple dozen newly dead each week at a sort of rundown sanitorium. Their goal? Get each person to pick a single moment from their life for the crew to make a short film about. Once they view the resulting film and find that moment of closure/peace, they move along.

So the question was, What is that one moment or memory you'd want to contemplate for all eternity--i.e., your definition of heaven based on your life?

Neat parlor game.

Vonne came up with this: walking over to the metal fence at Paisan's, the Italian restaurant where we both worked (me as cook, she as waitress), at the end of her afternoon shift on a Friday to say hi to me as I unlocked my Sears 10-speed Free Spirit (yes, I was that cool). We had had our first real conversation at my sister's b-day party the previous weekend, and she had asked me to walk her back to Paisan's that night to get her bike (I decided on the walk that I would marry her--quite possibly--but kept that completely to myself).

Her take on that moment: She thought I was a nice guy but always found that nice guys weren't interested in following up with her, so approaching me felt like a big risk.

Me? I had just let slip a chance to ask another waitress out that my sister was encouraging me to date. I let it slip primarily because I felt it was a bad match, but still, I was humiliated at my lack of action.

So I walk out to my bike, feeling a bit the loser, and Vonne walks over. I am stunned by this development, figuring someone as cool and interesting and beautiful as she would--in mirror-imaging fashion--naturally turn out to be uninterested in a guy like me (I was--and still am--two years her junior).

So when she walks over and says hi, I just asked her out on a date--right then and there. It's the only time in my entire life I ever just plained asked a girl out--straight up.

She said yes to "Blade Runner," and 25 years later here we are.

My moment was different. About a year after that we had plateaued in our relationship somewhat. We were having conversations of the deeper sort, truly revelatory, where you're making commitments with your intimacy.

One night, about 2am, after hours of discussion, Vonne basically drives me out of her apartment, telling me it's over, this won't and can't possibly work, etc. It was a rather brutal dismissal.

I remember walking--again to my locked Free Spirit--pulling out my key, and fumbling with the lock. But I stop, feel a lot of certainty well up inside me, and reject the free-and-easy break-off of our relationship. I remember physically shaking with this . . . I dunno what. It was like my entire life was shifting on this one fulcrum. I had this sense of: 1) go away and it's all over for good, or 2) go back in and it all continues forever. It felt like the biggest choice of my life, one that would determine everything. I will never forget that shaking, like the universe was collapsing in on me.

So I slipped the lock back on, put my keys in my pocket, picked up my backpack from the ground, and walked back across the street to Vonne's apartment house. I knocked on the door and she appeared rather quickly. And then, right there and continuing on through the rest of the night, I made the pitch of my life--the ultimate F2F briefing. I laid it all out, and made the sale. Vonne has never really tried to dump me ever again, although rhetorically (or what I like to call "rhetorically") she's made a few pointed threats over the years (but always reasonably connected to my behavior).

So I guess if we ended up in the afterlife together, as I assume we would based on these dueling memory points, my Free Spirit bike would be standing between us.