She Found The Love Of Her Life----At 93! Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story titled "She Found the Love of Her Life.....at 93".  It was written by Caroline Leavitt and goes like this... My mother moved to an independent living facility when she was 93, convinced that her life and any chance of a love relationship were over.  This after 33 years of an awful marriage with a sullen brute of a man, who also happened to be my father.  I never saw my parents hug, kiss, touch or say "I love you."  They slept in separate beds, separated even more by an end table.  The only relationship advice my mother gave me and my sister was a warning about how men needed sex, but women didn't need it or want it.  When my father died at 57, my mother didn't date, proclaiming herself "through with men and all that stuff."  She had resigned herself to being lonely, and she was even a little resentful when she saw me holding hands with my husband or kissing him while we danced.  "You're embarrassing everyone," she told me, though it was clear that it was only she who didn't like public displays of affection.  All that "lovey-dovey stuff," as she called it, was over for her.  But to her--and our--surprise, the lovey-dovey stuff was really just beginning. Within three days of being at independent living, she had met someone she called the Teddy Bear.  He was a bulky guy, twice her height.  When I met him, he had his arm thrown around her, and my mother was glowing.  "She's my girlfriend," the Teddy Bear told me.  For the first time in many years, my mother was actually happy.  "I'm just testing the waters," she told me.  She was seeing how it felt to be with a man who didn't yell or threaten her, who teased her and was affectionate.  It was an innocent as grade school.  Then a month later, after she and the Teddy Bear had transitioned into casual buddies, she met Walter.  "It was passion at first sight," she sighed.  Walter was smart, handsome, full of life and 91; we joked that Mom was robbing the cradle.  A world traveler, he was also well-read, with a sharp sense of humor.  At our first meeting, he joyfully told me that my crusty, complaining mom was like "starlight."  He later told her he had been watching her from afar and had noticed her ebullience, her laughter and her beauty.  Soon they were inseparable.  Mom couldn't stop talking about Walter.  "He has a beatutfl neck," she told me.  "And you should see his eyes."  I had never heard her speak of any man like this.  She would giggle on the phone like a teenager and say, "We kiss in the hallway, and I don't care who sees us!"  "I'm so happy you have a boyfriend!" I told my mother, and she laughed.  "Oh honey, he's more than that," she said, proudly whispering, "He's a sexual partner."  During all my visits, my mom and Walter couldn't keep their hands off each other.  He would say, "She is my sunshine" to her, and we knew he was her everything.  They enjoyed long talks and walks, champagne on New Year's Eve and, best of all, physical intimacy, something she had not had before.  At 98, my mother began to show signs of dementia and was moved to another building that housed assisted living residents.  There, I saw her in her wheelchair, Walter kneeling beside her, telling her he'd still visit her every day.  And he did, for a while.  Four months after my mother's move, Walter suffered a fall that badly hurt his back and claimed his cognitive abilities.  He was moved to the memory care unit.  But if he forgot her, she never forgot him.  My mom believed they are still together, all the time.  "I just put on fresh sheets for Walter," she would tell me, pointing to her bed, winking---even though the only bed he'd be in was his own.  When he died, my sister and I agreed not to tell her.  And no one had to, because she insisted she still saw him, and slept with him, every day.  During Mom's dying days, at 101, I was at her bedside.  So, she told us, was Walter, holding her hand.  My mother's romance made me appreciate my own 31 years of truly happy marriage.  And it offers us the promise that love and intimacy don't have an expiration date.  Amen!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.