Peter and Lisa
Peter King is the quintessential eternal optimist. He is also charmingly philosophical. Peter is a working journalist and therefore, he is also a realist, accepting life’s hardest moments as well as new adventures, including love. He is inspired by a quote from Sally Field’s character in the 2021 film Spoiler Alert where her character advises her adult son: “You have to run the race in front of you because that’s all there is.”
Peter is clearly running the race in front of him and true to character, he is doing so with optimism. After caring for and ultimately losing Lisa Meyer, his wife of more than ten years, Peter says that today he is “trying to live my life and move forward, not move on. Lisa’s always with me and she’s always going to be. That’s how it works.”
A correspondent for CBS News Radio, Peter loves to and knows how to tell a good story like how he and Lisa met and eventually married. And a good story it is. Back in the 1990s, both were working for CBS News, when Lisa was anchoring news coverage from New York and Peter was doing live reports from Central Florida. Their numerous off-air chats led to a long-distance friendship between coworkers.
Ultimately, flirtations began and continued for quite some time before either had ever seen each other in person. “By the time I met her face-to-face, I was actually a bit scared to death of her because she was a real Type A, a locomotive steaming forward. My feeling was, I’d better stay out of the way of this woman,” he says laughing before adding that when he did actually see her for the first time he thought she was “Beautiful, absolutely, stunningly beautiful.”
With their respective career moves, they eventually lost track of each other but reconnected six years later when Lisa began working for Associated Press Radio and came to Florida in 2005 to cover the first Space Shuttle flight after the Columbia accident. Peter had been reporting about the space and shuttle programs for years. “She contacted me to find out a little bit about what it was like because this was somebody who never went into an assignment unprepared.”
When they reconnected, the sparks were “obvious” but the timing was wrong — Peter was married. But when his marriage ended three years later, his first call was to Lisa. “Look,” he told her. “I have not been able to get you out of my mind for a very long time and I’m wondering if you would consider dating long distance. I’m all in if you’re up for it.” With Lisa then living in Boston and Peter still in Florida, they dated from a distance for two years until she finally moved to Florida where they married. Their connection was a perfect fit. “She was my baseball buddy. She’s the only woman I knew who had the baseball package for TV and that impressed all my friends,” he jokes. They loved their life together, which included travel, reading and baseball. “We were also really good at just hanging out and doing nothing.”
“It wasn’t perfect because no marriage and no relationship is perfect, but I had been down that road before and finally I got it right. I was really, really happy, and we were really happy together.”
But life changed drastically In November of 2020. Lisa was having issues with her back, and no one could identify the cause. “By the time they (doctors) figured out exactly what it was, it had spread like wildfire,” Peter says, sharing that in the mid-2000s, Lisa had beaten leukemia, which he said he always feared “would come back and bite us.”
“We both knew this was not going to be good and that this was likely to be a terminal illness before they ever told us.” They were correct; Lisa was diagnosed with Stage 4 cervical cancer.
“By the time I met her face-to face, I was actually
a bit scared to death of her…”
The couple’s life changed immediately and began to revolve around making sure Lisa was comfortable and had whatever she desired, whether that was certain foods, things to read, programs on TV or anything else. “There was nothing that I wouldn’t do to make her last weeks or months as pleasant as possible. She was the most generous woman and the most giving woman I had ever known, and it was my mission to make sure whatever time she had left was going to be as good as it could possibly be.”
Peter says Lisa was good with her decision to choose hospice care over medical treatment and most especially her choice to keep her situation private from almost everyone, save a select few friends and family members. She also adamantly made her wishes clear that there was to be no public announcement about her death in their professional circles, no formal obituary or funeral service. She sought to leave with as much privacy as possible.
In the hardest and most emotional experiences, ordinary acts of everyday life become profound moments of courage and kindness. During their final weeks together, Peter didn’t work and instead focused on caring for his wife – bathing her, feeding her and assisting her with her every need. “She really, really needed me there 24/7 and I needed to be there 24/7.”
Peter was smitten as soon as he learned Lisa had the MLB baseball TV package.
Doing everything possible to make Lisa comfortable and happy even included a stint in the kitchen, slightly foreign territory for Peter, who is way more comfortable at a ballgame or playing piano. Lisa requested that Peter make a traditional Hannukah dinner, something they had missed because of the severity of her illness. “She gave me all the instructions and talked me through it,” he shares with pride. The elaborate meal included roast chicken, potato latkes from scratch, matzo ball soup – “The whole nine yards. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in the kitchen,” and he earned a memorable “thumbs up,” from his bride.
When Lisa died, Peter, and their beefy pug Otis, were right by her side in the home they shared and loved for more than a decade. “There was nothing left unsaid,” Peter says. “We talked about stuff. We left nothing on the table.'“ Now, nearly four years later, Peter is finding his way forward. Ever the straight-shooter, Peter is candid about his life and past relationships. “I’ve had a rather checkered career in terms of marriage,” Peter says, explaining that Lisa was his fourth wife. One of the people she encouraged Peter to share their circumstances with was their friend Valerie, who also happened to be Peter’s first wife.
Otis remained by Lisa’s side until the day she died and today is Peter’s constant companion.
Peter and Valerie had married and divorced when they were very young. After a 15-year quiet period, the two resumed a friendship, which included Lisa. “She (Lisa) knew that Valerie would be one of the people that would be there for me during her (Lisa’s) illness and after she died. “It was helpful and meaningful.” A few months after Lisa’s death, Peter and Valerie’s ongoing communications eventually led to reciprocal visits to Central New York where Valerie lives and Florida where Peter still resided. “Early on it was just to decompress because it was really nice to be out of Florida and we spent an awful lot of time just talking.”
Over time Peter says he began missing Valerie when they were apart. “I just had this feeling of I really like this person and I’m missing her. I wonder how she would feel about seeing me again.” The two realized that life is a lot different in your 60s than in your 20s or 30s. “When you’re in your 60s, you have a lot less time left, and you want to make the most of it.”
Beginning a new relationship after the death of a beloved spouse is not easy and comes with unique emotional complications. But optimistic Peter notes that he’s been lucky. “Lightning struck with Lisa; lightning struck again with Valerie. They share a lot of qualities with both being smart and creative and clever, and yet there are so many differences and I embrace the differences.” He adds, “It all requires a great deal of understanding and a great deal of talk. I’d like to think I’ve become a better listener.”
Peter theorizes that men, more than women, may find it difficult to live on their own after losing their spouse. He spoke to friends about the issue, specifically male friends who had already been down the same road long before Peter. He wanted to know how they knew when it was time to contemplate a new relationship. “Every one of them to a ‘T’ said, you just do, you just know.”
Peter makes no apologies for moving forward. “What’s nice to find out is that there’s room to love again. I’m thankful every night when I go to sleep. I don’t feel like I have to explain myself, but you know what? I like being happy.”
UPDATE - Since this story was first published, Peter and Valerie have taken their relationship up a notch; they married in May 2024. Their decision to wed came after a good deal of thought and a deep desire for happiness together. Valerie has retired from teaching and the couple will split their time together between New York and Florida. Despite their joy, they’ve had a fair share of sorrow with the sudden death of Peter’s brother Rick last year and the recent loss of Peter’s beloved pug, Otis. “We’ve had challenges but have taken them on as a team,” says Peter. He notes that they’ve also worked together on several DIY home improvement projects…”and if those don’t doom a relationship, nothing will.” Happily, he adds, this is no longer a long distance relationship.
