Rand Paul’s Wife, Kelley, Describes How They Met and Their Family Life

KELLEY PAUL: “I met Rand on a beautiful spring day in April. I thought he was cute. He was cute, curly headed guy. I also thought he was probably eighteen years old and still in college. He looked so young. I kind of blew him off at first. But Rand kept trying, he was kind of persistent at the party, and he came up to me again a little bit later. We started talking and during our conversation I realized that he was not a teen. He was 26 and a surgical internet at George Baptist; very intelligent, very well-read, and really like no one that I never met before.

Rand is the middle child of five. From what I have heard from his siblings growing us, he was all like he is today. He was opinionated, had a lot of energy, played a lot of sports. He also loved to collect coins which is something that he used to dealing with his grandmother. He was very close to her and through the years as her eyesight begin to fail, he became her eyes to spy the [indecipherable] marks on the coins as they would go through them together. But Rand never forgot how sad it was for him to watch his grandmother lose her vision and I think that really cemented in him the desire to be an ophthalmologist.

One of the most gratifying things for Rand in his career has been the ability to do eye surgery on children from Guatemala starting fifteen years ago. And now he’s gone back to Guatemala and operated on hundreds of other patients there. One couple that Rand told me about was especially powerful and memorable. He operated on a woman who had not been able to see. Two days later she brought her husband and he was also blinded by cataracts and Rand described them removing his patch and him seeing his wife and her being able to see him for the first time in seven or eight years. He said it was incredibly moving experience. I think his moments like that really speak to ho he is as a surgeon and what motivates him.

Rand is a wonderful dad. He’s got great energy and enthusiasm and he’s always been wonderful builder of forts, bond fires, anything active on outside. From early age, all of our boys loved sports and Rand has coached little league baseball soccer, you name it, he’s out there.

Being a physician gives Rand a unique perspective in Washington simply because he’s trained to diagnose the problem and find a solution. He truly believes that if you believe in something you should get involved. If you put your mind and your energy to it, you can do it, and I think that’s a great example for our kids and it’s also something that makes him an amazing person to be married to. Rand has the energy, ideas, the honesty to really help restore prosperity and hope in our country. He loves making difference as the doctor and he believes that he can make a difference as the president.”