This month, February 2022, in honor of Valentine's Day and in the spirit of celebrating love, we asked teammates in our department for stories of love in their lives. A few responded and were willing to share their personal tales.
Greg and Sue Davis met when Greg, Division Director, Forensic Pathology, was a fourth-year medical student and Sue was a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Vanderbilt University. They had friends in common and kept running into one another for about a year on campus before actually dating.
“We started off as friends who liked the same sorts of movies, so we started seeing those together,” Greg recalls. They dated for about two years before they got married, on November 4, 1989. Guests of their wedding remember one omission from the ceremony: the minister forgot to tell Greg he could “kiss the bride.”
“He just announced us as a married couple,” Greg says. “They started playing the recessional, and you could hear everyone saying, ‘he didn’t let them kiss!’ I had to turn around and ask him, and he said go ahead but make it quick.”
Ever since, the pair have taken every chance they can to kiss and make up for it (as evidenced by the photos below, taken at the 2021 UAB Pathology Holiday Party).
The couple moved to Birmingham following a month-long camping trip, punctuated by nervous check-ins from Dr. Davis’s future boss who, “thought we were never coming.” They went tent camping from San Diego up to Vancouver, British Columbia, across the Canadian Rockies, then down through the Rocky Mountains, before driving home from Denver.
Today, Greg Davis, M.D., is Division Director of Forensic Pathology, and Sue Davis, Ph.D., is a chemical engineer who teaches physics at Samford. They have two daughters, both in graduate school, one at Samford University and the other at the University of Arizona. Both Davises celebrate their birthdays in February so they “always” celebrate that plus Valentine’s Day in some way, they say.
This year they are going to run a 25K trail run together in Arkansas, which includes, “wading through hip-deep water,” Greg says. They’ve been hiking and exercising partners since their honeymoon, which was originally planned for Charleston, South Carolina, but derailed when Hurricane Hugo hit and “pretty much demolished the city,” he says. “We went instead to Savannah, then Asheville, North Carolina, where we hiked and greatly enjoyed it.”
When asked what one word they would use to summarize a successful marriage, Greg suggests, “forebear,” by which he means, “we always remember we love and care for each other, so even when we disagree, we keep that foundation of love in mind, and get over whatever we’re arguing about.”