When people of a ‘certain’ age find themselves suddenly single, where do they turn to find love? Let’s forget for a moment singles bars and dating sites. Most singles bars have closed down due to lack of interest and smaller centers just wouldn’t have one anyway. Dating sites, while productive to some, don’t always work. People in their fifties and sixties may find it too personal, they don’t trust their information being sent off into a cyberspace. Anyway, lots of us just aren’t computer savvy.
Setups by friends can work, assuming you have friends who have single friends they want you to meet. Lots of people, though, don’t want to be in that position of being a matchmaker. Too much trouble and it can come back to bite you. So where do people of a particular age find love? Take the story of two of my favourite people in the world. Both I have known for many years, and seperately have played a part in my life.
They find themselves with spouses who are terminally ill and spend hours of each day visiting the hospital, each devoted to the care and needs of their ill partner. Mary, not her real name, has the kind of personality that is nurturing and all giving. Mary loves to take care of people and to feed them and look out for them and iron their clothes. Mary loves being a wife. Her children are grown with kids of their own. Her husband, who she visits daily, is her second husband; her first having succumbed at a young age to heart failure. Mary now finds herself, once again, contemplating the world alone without the love of a good man to whom she can cater.
Enter Joe. Not his real name, but nevertheless it fits with Mary and it’s an honest name. Joe is visiting his wife of many years who is also ill with no hope of recovery. Joe and his wife have been married for more than forty years, have grown children and several grandchildren and they are all at a loss about what will become of Joe.
Joe and Mary meet up one day in the hallway of the hospital. They have several mutual bonds. First and foremost, Joe and Mary knew each other many years ago; in fact they had many shared acquaintances. Time, as it often does, and circumstances had separated them as life took them down different paths. Secondly, they have their ailing spouses.
Of course, Joe and Mary, stayed in touch after the passing of their spouses. They had that in common. Their shared grief. And as their grief lessened they saw attributes in one another that would ultimately lead to love and marriage. There were no awkward introductions as they became reacquainted with each other’s family. It was familiar and easy.
At the time of their marriage, Joe and Mary were only in their early sixties. Not old. Young enough to grab at and hold onto another shot at love and life.
Joe and Mary have recently celebrated their twenty-first anniversary with a continued sharing of love and respect and an enormous sense of fun. They are busy with their extended and combined families, their many, many friends and their outside interests.
What is this phenomenon that draws us ultimately to someone from our past? Is it the safeness of the encounters? The shared background that makes our conversations, as we start the courtship, so much easier? Not having to ask the usual questions because we already know the answers?
Think of it. Dating is awful. When you are thirty and your skin is taut and your muscles are toned and you have energy to spare, it’s daunting. When you are well into your fifties and sixties, dating is downright intimidating. What will you talk about? What will you do on the first date? The second? If there’s a third, what then? You will discuss the banalities of life. Where are you from? Where did you go to school? Have you had any lasting relationships? The questions are never ending and the answers can be disappointing. Compare this with the accidental or intentional meeting with someone from your past. In the case of Mary and Joe, an old neighbour from many years gone by. No need for the mundane questions. You probably know if they have kids, what they do or did for a living, their religious views. It would be more a case of catching up with their life rather than getting to know about their life. You have a sense of how they treated their former partners because chances are good you were around them and saw first hand. Doesn’t this allow you to skip all the preliminary stuff and jump right into the important stuff, such as, Where is this wonderful road taking us? Are we falling in love?
I think it’s more than the safeness of the encounters. As we live longer and fuller lives, at the ripe old age of sixty we are more than ready for marriage again. We are ready for the romance when it comes along, the intrigue and the all-important love and what better person to experience it with than someone with whom you have some shared past. That’s what Joe and Mary have and now, at eighty-seven and eighty-four, their romance, intrigue and love are still strong with no visible signs of diminishing.
Clearly, Mary and Joe aren’t of the Baby Boomer generation, and, clearly, I did state that my articles would be Baby Boomer related. Yet their story is still valid and important for three very good reasons. First, Mary and Joe were our age when they had the fateful encounter in the corridors of a hospital that led to their romance and ultimate happy marriage. Second, they are the age of our parents so their children are Baby Boomers, and, third, I just really like their story.
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