“We aren’t married.”
“He is a widower and I am a widow and we have known each other for many years. We are courting.”
“It’s not my fault. I’ve asked her, but she keeps turning me down.”
“No. I just tell him I’m not ready. My husband died seven months ago. His wife died three and a half years ago. It is hard.”
“We are in love and we are happy.”
“We have been together five months, but I have known him 22 years. We used to go to church together.”
“We have been courting and sitting on benches since November. We go to church and walk down to look at the ducks. We live an exciting life don’t we?”
“We have fun doing nothing and just being with each other.”
“How did this change from friendship to time courting?”
“I prayed about it for several years. Friends would tell me it was time to date and who I should date. I told them if my the Lord wants me to have another, he will send her walking up on my porch. One day five months ago she walked up on my porch. The preacher brought her. She asked me how I was doing after my wife passed and I said I was miserable. After her husband died, she got to thinking about me being miserable and how miserable she was. She mentioned and mentioned it it to a preacher friend of ours until one day he said come one and they loaded her up and walked her on my porch. There she was, the answer to prayer. She didn’t have a clue what she was getting into, but she gave me her number and I told her she was an answered prayer. I have enjoyed every minute of it. Yesterday I sang in her niece’s church and we went to Pensacola, after that we went and had lunch with my daughter, she has Down’s Syndrome, and we walked on the pier there for two hours watching the pretty people. Doing nothing, just being together.”
“Do you sing to her?”
“Oh Yeah.”
“That is kind of sexy when a man sings to you.”
“Oh really?”
“You know it is.”
“I never even thought about it.”
“Yes he has.”
“Does it feel good to laugh after you were miserable?’
“I have done nothing but laugh since I have been with him.”
“I love to make her laugh. Sometimes I think she is laughing at me.”
“It’s a little of both. He is a lot of fun. He has dry sense of humor.”
“We go down to the Waffle House and drink hot chocolate and they call her ‘Giggles’ down there.”
“The Lord says laughter is like a medicine.”
“She ought to be the healthiest lady in Baldwin County.”
Beautiful story. Your “OSS” is their “Our Something Strange.”
I know a couple that have a similar story. They met at Mobile Infirmary when his wife and her husband were in the final stages of cancer. Their spouses passed away within a few days of one another. Months passed, he called and they went to lunch; that led to eventually getting married. The deep shared grief is what they had in common and it helped them to bond quickly. For me it is a great example of how love can bring us back from the darkness.