Love, again : the wisdom of unexpected romance

171 Pages·2015·1.21 MB·English

by  Pell

Love, Again is a work of nonfiction. Some names and identifying details have been changed.
Copyright © 2015 by Eve Pell
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of
Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following to reprint preexisting material: Dorothy
Cresswell: Song lyrics by Dorothy Cresswell, 2008. All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
Agneta Falk Hirschman: Poem entitled “Two Birds” by Agneta Falk Hirschman.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pell, Eve.
Love, again: the wisdom of unexpected romance / Eve Pell.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-8041-7646-0
eBook ISBN 978-0-80417647-7
1. Love in old age. 2. Older people—Social aspects. 3. Older people—Psychology. 4. Love. I.
Title.
HQ1061.P3423 2015
306.7084′6—dc23 2014034541
www.ballantinebooks.com
Jacket design: Misa Erder
v3.1_r1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Cast of Characters
Introduction
Chapter 1: Start Here
Chapter 2: How Did You Know?
Chapter 3: Now What?
Chapter 4: Obstacles
Chapter 5: Mechanics of Coupledom
Chapter 6: Is Love When You Are Old Different from Love When You Are
Young?
Chapter 7: Sex!
Chapter 8: The Valley of the Shadow
Chapter 9: Learning from Experience
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Other Books by This Author
About the Author
Cast of Characters
(In Order of Appearance)
Sam Hirabayashi and Eve Pell
Californians and competitive runners, Sam and Eve fell in love at
the respective ages of 77 and 67.
Agneta Falk Hirschman and Jack Hirschman
Artists and poets, Agneta and Jack live in San Francisco’s North
Beach, where they are charter members of the Revolutionary Poets
Brigade. Her friends call her Aggie.
Howard Solomon and George Oliver
Howard is a retired professor and artist, George a retired writer and
teacher. They go back and forth between Howard’s house in Maine
and George’s apartment in New Orleans.
Patricia MacDonald and Winston MacDonald
Pat is a retired nurse, Winnie a retired coach. They were high school
classmates in Athol, Massachusetts, married other people, lived their
lives, and reconnected fifty years later.
Vilma Kracun Crisóstomo and João Crisóstomo
Vilma is from Slovenia, João from Portugal. They live in Queens,
New York. She is a retired nurse; he still works occasionally as a
butler.
Jack Osborn and Sherrie Osborn
Jack and Sherrie live in Marin County, California. Their relationship
was orchestrated by their daughters, who were longtime friends.
Jack and Sherrie live in Marin County, California. Their relationship
was orchestrated by their daughters, who were longtime friends.
Carole Abrams and Steven Katz
Though a committed couple, Carole and Steven have separate
homes, she in New York City and he in Hackensack, New Jersey.
This phenomenon is called LAT—living apart together. Steven is
retired from a varied career, while Carole continues to be involved
with orphanages in Africa, and both are adoptive parents.
Tricia Elam-Walker and Chuck Walker
Tricia and Chuck met in 1977, at a gathering of black law students
in Boston. Tricia’s father, a judge, was Chuck’s mentor. They
married other people and reconnected decades later.
Maria Manetti Shrem and Jan Shrem
Philanthropists who each made a fortune in business, Maria and Jan
are pillars of the San Francisco social scene.
Margaret Julkowski and Charlie Henson
Margaret and Charlie met after each had moved into the senior
trailer park in Pismo Beach, California. They are LAT, with homes at
opposite ends of the park.
Dusty Miller and Dorothy Cresswell
Dusty, a teacher and writer, and Dorothy, a retired kindergarten
teacher, knew each other as part of a community of activist gay
women in Massachusetts. Both had early marriages to men before
they began relationships with women.
Bob and Rori
Bob and Rori, who prefer not to use their last names, recently
eloped. They met on a bike path. She had a flat tire and he stopped
to help.
Penelope Canan and Victor Hurlburt
These staunch defenders of the environment live in Orlando,
Florida. Victor is a semiretired engineer, and Penelope is a retired
sociology professor.
Dorothy Peterson and Bob Firth
Dorothy and Bob met at a retirement home in Georgia. She was a
widow when she moved in; he lived there with his wife, who
subsequently died of Alzheimer’s. They are newlyweds.
Sally Werntz and Donald Shombert
Sally and Donald met online and have been married for eight years.
He is a retired chemistry professor, she a retired businesswoman.
They live outside of Philadelphia.
Introduction
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made.
—Robert Browning
This book would never have happened if it weren’t for Sam Hirabayashi.
He was a Japanese American who was interned in camps during World
War II, became a pillar of his community, and retired from a career as a
government statistician. Doesn’t sound romantic, does it? But he was a
handsome, fit, and charming widower. After two divorces, I was single
and looking. We belonged to the same running club in Northern
California.
I planned a trap for him, which you will read about, and into which he
tumbled. It was 2005, and we dated for two years. Then, when I turned
70 and he turned 80, we added our ages together, had a 150th birthday
party, and announced our engagement. We married a year later.
Why would a pair of grandparents, when there were not very many
grains of sand remaining in our hourglasses, do something that is
traditionally thought of as the province of the young?
It was crazy; it was wonderful. After our wedding, we went to Hawaii.
“You must never call this a honeymoon,” Sam told me on the plane.
“That way, no one can ever say that our honeymoon is over.” See?
Romantic.
In the time we had, we were truly cemented together. That boundless
connection with him, something I had never experienced before, opened
my heart.
I was not prepared for that, especially at my age.
Old models of the elderly didn’t allow for new romance. When I was a
kid, old men sat around and amused small children by making funny
noises with their pipes; old women ran the houses and beamed when we
came to visit. I saw old people as proper, set in their ways, conventional,
slow-moving, and formal, as if they didn’t experience the same kinds of
feelings that I did. Even though two of my grandparents married again
after their spouses died, I never thought of them as romantic and
certainly not as sexual—each was just an old person who now lived with
another old person instead of living alone.
Now that I’m old myself, though, that is not enough and that is not
me. Most of the people you are about to meet have also refused to be
limited by stereotypes—in fact, they are making their own rules. Old
people who follow their own hearts now are not considered exceptional
or outlandish—less Auntie Mame and more Judi Dench.
Old people are meeting—online, in bars, at senior sports venues, in
old-age homes, in grocery stores, on cruise ships—and falling in love,
brazenly, quietly, unexpectedly, in ways as varied as human
personalities. The fastest-growing demographic in online dating is
individuals over 60.
America is graying, particularly as baby boomers, that huge bulge in
the belly of the python, move into their 60s. The population aged 65 and
over increased from 35 million in 2000 to 41.4 million in 2011—and is
projected to reach 79.7 million in 2040. Accordingly, there are more
single old people than ever—widows and widowers and those who have
never married; those who have never found Mr. or Ms. Right; those who
are too embarrassed about being old to look for love; those who feel that
romance has no place in the lives of grandparents; and the “silver
splitters” who divorce late in life. The AARP reports that 45 percent of
adults 65 and older are divorced, separated, or widowed.
Men who reach 65 today can expect to live fifteen more years and
women nearly twenty more. That’s a long time. It seems even longer, I
suppose, to those who are unhappily married. When one is old, by
definition there is less of a future to plan and build for, so the present
takes on more immediate importance. There’s less reason to stick with
an unsatisfactory relationship, if that’s what you’ve got, and more reason
to take a chance on finding something better.