7 minute read
Real Life Love Stories
Finding true love may take longer for some couples, and that’s perfectly fine for those who’ve discovered it’s worth the wait.
By Pam Pardy
When I first laid eyes on the man I’m now engaged to,
I knew something was different, though meeting the love of my life wasn’t the plan that particular evening. I was doing research for a story I was writing about a new dating company in St. John’s, NL, called Dress Shoes Events.
Dress Shoes takes a unique approach to dating, taking it offline to in-person encounters between like-minded single men and women for dining or dancing at different locations throughout the city. That evening’s event was held at the Gypsy Tea Room, and as I was taking pictures and conducting interviews, one gentleman caught my attention. His voice was deep and soothing, and he was obviously incredibly intelligent. As we chatted, I noted his seafoam coloured shirt, his perfectly tailored suit jacket and the way these wild grey-black curls sprung freely and playfully beneath his jauntily placed leather cap. I was intrigued – but I was working and not out looking for love. Besides, this man was nearing 65 and I was not yet 52. He had grandchildren and I had a 12-year-old at home. We were not destined to be one another’s happily ever after – or so we thought. A random encounter a month later, a lunch that turned into supper that turned into pretty much every meal that followed, totally changed our lives. Falling in love was quick, and though there were challenges to overcome, it’s been worth it.
Violet Browne , who started Dress Shoes Events, says she isn’t surprised to hear how happy my partner and I are together. “The older we get, the more we value love and treasure the time we have together. We start making ourselves a priority for once. We trust our decision-making more, too, and we know better what we want as well as what we don’t want,” she explains. That was certainly true for Diane Wiseman and Calvin Byrd. “He was 59. I was 52. We had both lost our partners and were widowed, and when we met online and started chatting, there was just something there instantly,” Diane shares. “I lived in St. John’s and he lived in English Harbour East, and I got on a taxi and just threw caution to the wind and went with my heart, and I showed up at his door and never left.” That was 13 years ago, and Diane says, “Calvin’s charming. He’s funny. And we’re still so in love. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Sometimes the love we find later in life has long been there, it’s just taken a while to rediscover it. Just ask Ann Marie and Hubert “Buck” Goulding. Ann Marie has been in love with Hubert since she first saw him at a roller skating rink when she was 13 years old. “It was at the old Memorial Stadium and he strolled in through those doors with roller skates in hand, and I said to myself, ‘I’m going to like that guy.’” Anne Marie laughs at the sweet memory. “I fell in love with Buck in Grade 7, and he went to my Grade 9 graduation with me, and then we became a serious couple in Grade 10 and his name was written all over my school books that year.”
Diane Wiseman and Calvin Byrd have been together for 13 years, meeting when they were in their 50s.
As often happens with high school romances, the two drifted apart after that. But in the summer of 2003, they ran into one another and sparks flew. “I feel like I’m that 15-year-old girl again,” Anne Marie confesses. “It’s exciting and fun and romantic and beautiful. We both went on with our lives and grew up, I guess you’d say, but how we always cared about one another never changed.”
Beverley and Michael Barry know the feeling. The two met – and fell in love – on a ferris wheel in Clarenville, NL, back in 1981. “We were at Thomas Amusements and none of my friends would ride with me. And I saw Michael there with his group of buddies and I just out and asked him to ride the ferris wheel with me – and he did,” Beverley recalls with a chuckle.
A year later, Michael unexpectedly left the province to attend school and a then 16-year-old Beverley was devastated. “Our young, innocent love was blossoming; and then the last night we were together, he kissed me goodnight, walked out the door and I never saw him again for years. I was heartbroken.”
They both went on to marry others, but admit they wondered often how the other was doing. Finally, 30some years later, Michael finally picked up the phone and called Beverley to wish her a happy birthday. “He told me that he had made a promise to himself that he was going to reach out to me on my 50th birthday, and I’m so glad he did,” she says. Both had been married twice before and those relationships hadn’t worked out, but they knew this time was different.
High school sweethearts Anne Marie and Buck Goulding drifted apart over the years but were reunited in 2003.
"We were both single when he called me that day [on her birthday] and it was like, ‘Let’s not waste one more precious day.’” Beverley was living in Newfoundland and Labrador, and Michael was in Ontario, but that didn’t stop the two reacquainted love birds. “Michael said, ‘You know we are going to be together for the rest of our lives, so let’s just do this,’ and so we did.”
Beverley shares what many who find love later in life say: “Ours is a love that others can see and feel. It’s the kind of love that makes people say they believe in true love again. Once they see us together and hear our story, they’re invested. It’s special. We know it, and those who meet us know it.”
Diane agrees. “The laughter is sweeter. Love is stronger. The bad times are not as tough. There’s something special about finding that perfect someone at a time in your life when you thought it couldn’t or wouldn’t happen.”
Michael and Beverley Barry rekindled their teenage romance 30 years later.
Violet smiles, inspired by the many late-in-life love stories she’s heard. “Love needs to be appreciated to be truly valued, and as we get older, we know that. Young love can be selfish –what’s in it for us, type thing. Finding love at an age and time when we’ve been through many of life’s ups and downs, then it’s more about giving of ourselves,” she says.
Ann Marie gets the last word. “I was never a romantic, but now I believe in true love. I believe we all have that one someone we are supposed to find, or maybe we found them and just have to find our way back. Hang in there. Don’t give up hope. True love is worth the wait.”
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Life is Better Downhome" A winter hike to Cedar Cove
Connie Boland, Corner Brook, NL
