True love
The fairytale of Robin and Bert
Elisa Rosenthal
Olivia Michelsen
For many young girls, the fairytale magic of a perfect romance fades as they grow up. I’ve had the privilege of that magic never fading, as my parents’ perfect love story and marriage reinforce it for me every day.
When I babysat, I always told the young girls my parents' love story as if it were some fictional tale. At the end, I would finally reveal the happy couple was in fact my parents, and their faces would glow with the realization that this kind of love existed outside just movies and books.
I still tell this story to my friends today as both a bragging point and a way to spread the magic of true love. Their story has shown me what unconditional love looks like and has set a precedent for the way I want to be treated in the future.
Robin and Bert got married on July 25, 1999, a sweltering summer day that still feels perfect in their minds, as they now recall it after 26 years. Their story is somewhat of a butterfly effect that starts long before they ever even met.
They were born a day apart, in the same year, on opposite sides of the East Coast. I truly believe fate is what brought my two wildly different parents together in a perfect mix that’s created a loving marriage.
Albert “Bert” Jules Rosenthal III was born on March 19, 1973, in Augusta, Georgia, to his parents, Bettye and Al Rosenthal.
Bert was born to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father and was set to be raised Catholic. At 2 years old, his biological mother died of complications from the birth of his younger brother. In the wake of her passing, Al decided to raise his kids Jewish.
Throughout his childhood, Judaism became a huge part of Bert’s life. He attended a synagogue and started participating in a youth group through the National Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY) when he was in high school.
He became very involved, holding two positions — social action vice president and president — on the regional board in his last two years of high school. He attended an annual event at the Union of Reform Judaism Camp Coleman, a sleepaway summer camp for Jewish children.
When Bert started attending the University of Georgia (UGA), he spent summers working as a camp counselor at Camp Coleman and joined a Jewish fraternity, Tau Epsilon Phi. After his graduation in 1996, he moved to Atlanta for work and started a side job at Temple Emanu El as the adviser for its NFTY high school youth group.
Robin Amy Bates was born on March 20, 1973, in Washington, D.C., to her parents Dennis and Gail Bates.
Robin was born and raised Jewish, and although she too had a parent of a different faith, her father, Dennis, converted when she was a baby. She also attended a synagogue throughout her life in Rockville, Maryland, and eventually in Monterrey, California, when her family moved there.
On paper, she was seemingly less involved than my father, never attending or working at Jewish camps or participating in youth groups. Her faith and morals were nonetheless equal to his, though, and Judaism was a big part of her family life.
She spent one year at a local university, then decided to transfer and move across the country to Emory University in Atlanta. After graduation, she too began working in Atlanta with different youth organizations, as she realized she wanted to be a teacher.
She also began working at Temple Emanu El as the middle school youth group adviser, working alongside Bert as needed to plan events for both the middle and high schoolers. The two knew of each other for about four months before officially meeting in January 1997.
The two became fast friends, collaborating to plan a year-end trip to Bert’s uncle’s beach house as a reward for the kids who attended the most events. As the story often goes, my dad began to see her as more than a friend but was shut down because my mom didn’t want to ruin the friendship.
The turning point ended up being that very year-end trip they had planned. They travelled to Kiawah Island, a beach town near Charleston, South Carolina, where Bert had spent many childhood summers. Bert elected to stay in the tiny laundry room all the way in the basement, allowing Robin to use the ginormous master bedroom.
One of the days spent at the beach, Robin got a bad sunburn, something that was rare for her as she naturally has very tan skin. In pain and unable to sleep, she walked down to Bert’s room looking for comfort and perhaps a distraction.
She ended up finally falling asleep in the tiny basement room with him, finding comfort and solace from the burn in Bert’s presence. As someone who lived her whole life with anxiety, she realized this was rare to come by, and this led her to finally agree to go on a date with him.
The first date was one to remember. They went to dinner together before going to the Fox Theatre to see “A Chorus Line,” a musical following 17 dancers auditioning for a spot on a Broadway ensemble. Robin was very impressed, and the pair continued to date and work together.
They became serious quite quickly, and to everyone around them, their relationship was different and more committed than others. One of Robin’s college friends, Miranda Whitmer, recalls the pair being so visibly happy around one another early on in their relationship.
“[Bert] had the biggest smile I had ever seen, and he looked at Robin, and it somehow got 25% bigger,” Whitmer said. “To see someone that happy around Robin was just wonderful, and I thought, ‘OK, yep, he's the guy for sure.’”
After a year and a half of dating, Bert and Robin had several conversations about marriage and even went ring shopping. They wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, and Bert went to great lengths to make sure the ring and proposal were perfect.
In November 1998, Bert joined Robin at her family’s Thanksgiving, spending the week with her extended family in Richmond, Virginia. Unbeknownst to Robin, a ring box had also made its way there, hidden in her dad’s suitcase so she wouldn’t find it, and the proposal would be a complete surprise.
After the meal, the whole family went around saying what they were thankful for. When it got around to Bert, he started reading a poem he had written for her that ended with him down on one knee, asking Robin to marry him.
She said yes, of course, admiring the perfect silver ring with sparkling diamonds and accents of purpley-blue tanzanite, a unique detail that paralleled just how special their relationship was.
Their wedding date was set, and would be held in the very synagogue that had brought them together as advisers. A multitude of friends and family gathered from both sides to celebrate their wedding, setting the precedent for how loved they would be as a couple and the people they’d be able to bring together.
Their first dance was to “Happy Together” by The Turtles, an upbeat song that stood out in comparison to the typical slow, swaying first dances usually seen. Little containers of bubbles were passed around, and the newlyweds danced and kissed in the sea of iridescent, soapy orbs.
Growing up, one of the photos from that moment sat in a picture frame in the living room, and I passed it every day. That’s how I knew true love was real. If people as different as my parents could find one another, get along so well and create such a great life with so many friends, family and eventually their children, I could do it too. They loved each other so unconditionally, and I knew there truly was someone for everyone.
The phrase “opposites attract” has always seemed so logical to me because it sums up my parents quite perfectly. They share so many of the same beliefs, but outwardly, they couldn’t be more different.
An old camp friend of Bert’s, Jackie Dalton, has been friends with the two of them for many years and reflected on how their relationship became an inspiration for her own, eventually.
“I've always admired [their] relationship in many ways, but [especially] how they support each other in their differences,” Dalton said. “You know, you say those opposites attract. I feel like Robin is the calm to Bert in many ways.”
My dad is consistently described as the life of the party, always at the center of every room and friends with everyone — seriously, the man has never met a stranger. He’s chatty, always cracking jokes and is often the loudest person around, especially when UGA football is involved.
His oldest friend, Eric Kuniansky, described him exactly that way, and who would know better than the person who has been friends with him since first grade: about 45 years of unwavering friendship.
“When I think of the words fun-loving, I think of Bert that way,” Kuniansky said. “He’s the kind of person that you want to be friends with because not only is he always going to be a good time, but [he’s] always going to have your back.”
If my mom is at a party, it’s usually because my dad has dragged her there. She tends to sit on the outskirts of the craziness, preferring quiet corners as opposed to the center of attention. Smaller group social settings tend to be her preference, and she has never been one to turn down a quieter night in with a few close friends.
“[Robin] always impressed me because she went to Emory,” their long-time friend Sue Shields said. “She's very smart, and the way she carried herself, and still does, with a level of class and sophistication which are, quite frankly, not the words I would use for Bert.”
They balance each other out and have met in the middle more over the years, becoming less different over the course of their life together. Bert has certainly calmed down — albeit not entirely so — and Robin has become much more outgoing since they first started dating.
Their differences have worked beautifully together for their 26 years of marriage, and their two children are a testament to how they’ve managed to stay true to one another. My brother and I are an obvious product of their successful relationship, and we’ve become two unique blends of both of their, sometimes starkly different, personalities and traits.
My brother Sam has my mom’s skin tone, but he is an identical replica of our dad in looks and mannerisms. He’s in the same fraternity Bert was at UGA and carries on the legacy of being an obnoxious football fan. He also shares some introvertedness with my mom and was definitely a more anxious, timid child, like she was.
I have been called my mom’s twin more times than I can count, and I’m following in her footsteps to become a teacher. I went to Camp Coleman for most of my childhood summers and participated in NFTY all throughout high school, just like my dad. He and I are also concert buddies, both sharing a love for music and expressing it similarly.
My brother and I have become an extension of their magical love story that didn’t end with “happily ever after” that summer day in 1999. Their love has never faded, and only grows stronger over the years as they started and kept a family and showed us what real, true love can look like.
We believe every piece of it, too. How could we not when we have the most perfect model right in front of us, not only exemplary in their marriage but also as the perfect parents to us.
