In 1991, Lynne Platt was in her mid-30s and settling into her new life as the wife of a Foreign Service officer when her husband suddenly fell ill during a post in the Dominican Republic. The couple quickly traveled to the United States for treatment of what turned out to be a rare blood cancer.
There was little the doctors could do. After just 13 months of marriage, Platt became a widow.
She returned to Washington, where she had previously lived. But rather than trying to get back into a policy job like the one she’d left to go abroad with her husband, she showed up on the steps of the State Department and asked for an application to join the Foreign Service. It was, she says, “a way of honoring my late husband.”In 1995, Platt got her first assignment: Cairo. From there she moved on to Casablanca and Brussels, and in 2004 she landed a coveted post in Paris.
By then, she’d started dating again; she had even accepted a proposal from one man but broke off the engagement after deciding that the relationship wasn’t quite right. What she wanted was a man with a kind heart and strong values — “somebody who’s really good,” she says. “The quality of goodness, I think, is highly underrated.”
She hadn’t thought much about Charles “Jud” Hamblett, who arrived to work at the embassy the following year, until she read a review he had written. “This boy can write an English sentence,” she noticed approvingly. Later, while working on projects together, Platt was impressed by Hamblett’s kindness and competency. So she was happily surprised when he asked her to join him for a few hours of boating along the Seine.
Hamblett was nervous about making the invitation — his 21-year marriage had recently ended, and the father of three was just beginning to contemplate dating again. “It was awkward, really,” he says. “I don’t get out much.”
But Hamblett, who spent much of his spare time exploring the waterways of Paris in a 16-foot inflatable Zodiac boat, was completely at ease on the river. As he and Platt slowly cruised the city, they traded stories of their journeys.
“I love to listen to Lynne speak. And I loved that the very first time we talked,” says Hamblett, now 56. “We would drift in and out of serious things and light things. There seemed to be an easy flow.”
Soon they were boating together every weekend and exploring the city by bike during the week. Platt, now 57, discovered that Hamblett was a multifaceted man. He was as enthusiastic as she was about art galleries and museum exhibits, and for her birthday, he gave her a poem he’d written. But she could also find him covered in oil from working on a car transmission. “He’s just not what you would expect,” she says.
The pair knew that their magical days in Paris were limited; in October 2008, Platt moved to a one-year posting in Baghdad. But before she left, they talked about finding a later assignment where they could serve together. The country that fit was Haiti.
The two arrived in their new host country in 2009. But the rhythms of their life on the island were blown apart on Jan. 12, 2010, when a massive, 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck. “It sounded like the ground underneath the house was exploding,” Platt remembers.
The U.S. Embassy’s 10-acre compound became the center of the relief effort. For two weeks, Platt and Hamblett slept under desks and worked around the clock to help with evacuations and the organization of rescue missions. The embassy “looked like its own refugee camp,” Hamblett says.
But living through the terror and tragedy of the quake drew the couple even closer, and the dedication they saw in each other affirmed to Hamblett that their lives were on“parallel tracks.”
So during a break in June, they returned to Paris, and on a footbridge near Platt’s old apartment, he asked her to marry him. “There was an endless stream of positive reinforcement,” he says of the relationship. “It seemed like a natural.”
It seemed that way to Platt, too, who had finally found the goodness she was looking for. “Having had a good marriage, I knew what I needed, and I was willing to hold out for it,” she says.
On March 12, the waiting was over. They exchanged vows and selections of poetry in the atrium of the Meridian House in Washington.
And two days before the wedding, the State Department came through with a perfect gift: word of their next assignment. Later this year, the couple will move to London.
There was little the doctors could do. After just 13 months of marriage, Platt became a widow.
She returned to Washington, where she had previously lived. But rather than trying to get back into a policy job like the one she’d left to go abroad with her husband, she showed up on the steps of the State Department and asked for an application to join the Foreign Service. It was, she says, “a way of honoring my late husband.”In 1995, Platt got her first assignment: Cairo. From there she moved on to Casablanca and Brussels, and in 2004 she landed a coveted post in Paris.
By then, she’d started dating again; she had even accepted a proposal from one man but broke off the engagement after deciding that the relationship wasn’t quite right. What she wanted was a man with a kind heart and strong values — “somebody who’s really good,” she says. “The quality of goodness, I think, is highly underrated.”
She hadn’t thought much about Charles “Jud” Hamblett, who arrived to work at the embassy the following year, until she read a review he had written. “This boy can write an English sentence,” she noticed approvingly. Later, while working on projects together, Platt was impressed by Hamblett’s kindness and competency. So she was happily surprised when he asked her to join him for a few hours of boating along the Seine.
Hamblett was nervous about making the invitation — his 21-year marriage had recently ended, and the father of three was just beginning to contemplate dating again. “It was awkward, really,” he says. “I don’t get out much.”
But Hamblett, who spent much of his spare time exploring the waterways of Paris in a 16-foot inflatable Zodiac boat, was completely at ease on the river. As he and Platt slowly cruised the city, they traded stories of their journeys.
“I love to listen to Lynne speak. And I loved that the very first time we talked,” says Hamblett, now 56. “We would drift in and out of serious things and light things. There seemed to be an easy flow.”
Soon they were boating together every weekend and exploring the city by bike during the week. Platt, now 57, discovered that Hamblett was a multifaceted man. He was as enthusiastic as she was about art galleries and museum exhibits, and for her birthday, he gave her a poem he’d written. But she could also find him covered in oil from working on a car transmission. “He’s just not what you would expect,” she says.
The pair knew that their magical days in Paris were limited; in October 2008, Platt moved to a one-year posting in Baghdad. But before she left, they talked about finding a later assignment where they could serve together. The country that fit was Haiti.
The two arrived in their new host country in 2009. But the rhythms of their life on the island were blown apart on Jan. 12, 2010, when a massive, 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck. “It sounded like the ground underneath the house was exploding,” Platt remembers.
The U.S. Embassy’s 10-acre compound became the center of the relief effort. For two weeks, Platt and Hamblett slept under desks and worked around the clock to help with evacuations and the organization of rescue missions. The embassy “looked like its own refugee camp,” Hamblett says.
But living through the terror and tragedy of the quake drew the couple even closer, and the dedication they saw in each other affirmed to Hamblett that their lives were on“parallel tracks.”
So during a break in June, they returned to Paris, and on a footbridge near Platt’s old apartment, he asked her to marry him. “There was an endless stream of positive reinforcement,” he says of the relationship. “It seemed like a natural.”
It seemed that way to Platt, too, who had finally found the goodness she was looking for. “Having had a good marriage, I knew what I needed, and I was willing to hold out for it,” she says.
On March 12, the waiting was over. They exchanged vows and selections of poetry in the atrium of the Meridian House in Washington.
And two days before the wedding, the State Department came through with a perfect gift: word of their next assignment. Later this year, the couple will move to London.
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