New love...

Love comes in all shapes, sizes, and ages. It comes in the sand boxes during weekday morning park play-dates... at middle school dances and high school football games... it comes when you want it, when you need it, and oh-so-often when you least expect it.

Their love came when they'd both lost everything they held dear.

They met in 1964, the year my mother was born. They knew each other mostly through their kids... two girls that loved to go on adventures and dreamed of someday being sisters so they could always be together.

It's hard not to know each other when you live in a small town... run-ins at the only grocery store, mutual friends weddings and parties and church events. And so casual friends they remained for nearly 50 years.

Last summer, at a routine check-up, his wife of 58 years was informed she had late-stage pancreatic cancer. Two months later, she passed away.

Last October, after nearly two decades of debilitating health problems, countless surgeries, months in the hospital, and a final few weeks at home with Hospice, her husband passed away. After serving as his sole caretaker for years, the loneliness was suffocating.

The pain was almost unbearable. His family wondered when he would smile again... hers wondered the same. And time drug on. In December, they ran into each other at a church function. He put his arm around her, told her he knew what she was going through. That yes, having your kids around you helped. That no, it wasn't the same as having your spouse and their love and support.

That night, a seed was planted.

He took the gentlemen's route. He called his four children and discussed his intentions. He gave her time to heal. And yes, he even had his daughter call his daughter to see if what he was plotting even stood a chance.

In February he made his move.

It was early in the week. She had been surprised to get a phone call that evening from her daughter's old childhood friend. Even more surprising was how nearly an hour into the conversation her call-waiting beeped and she discovered it was this woman's father.

"Um, your dad is on the other line, I've gotta go."

"Oh, he is in so much trouble."

They talked for awhile, and then he asked if she'd join him for dinner. "Friday night," she replied, not feeling quite ready to go out and knowing this would give her days to prepare.

By Wednesday, they both later shared, they were in agony and just ready to get the date over with.

The first date went well. He took her to a nice dinner, they laughed and talked and felt at ease with each other. They ended the night by a respectable 9pm after she'd accepted his invitation to go out the second night.

The second date went even better. To cap it off, he invited her to be his date at a political function he was attending for a local politician.

The third date had her gracing his arm at a high-dollar dinner. She sat with his family. She had a great time. No reports on what time she got home that night.

By the fourth date she was a different person. Walking straighter, laughing lighter, and smiling like I hadn't seen her do in years.

On the fifth date, just one week after that first call, he asked for her hand in marriage.

And she accepted.

The wedding planning has been a blur. Arrangements to be made, guest lists to be written (and rewritten and rewritten and rewritten). Flowers were picked out, rings purchased, and a honeymoon planned.

The biggest transition has been the housing. She is a city-girl. He is a born and bred country boy, living on hundreds and hundreds of acres of his own farmland covered in cotton and almonds and pistachios. She has some adjusting to do. "With him," she says, "I'll gladly do it."

A bit over a week to go, and I have a feeling she is just as giddy and anxious as a 69-year-old bride as I was as a 23-year-old bride. I laugh when he shares that he wishes that they wouldn't have waited as long.

And I couldn't be happier for my Grandma Linda and new Grandpa Fred.