HOW I CAME TO BE WHERE I AM TODAY

It was in December of 2001 and I had been a 78-year-old widower for about 8 months. Cancer had terminated a beautiful 19-year marriage again. I say "again" because I had previously experienced the termination of another beautiful 18-year marriage and that was also due to cancer. I was beginning to think there was a pattern. My health was marginal, to say the least. I was on diabetic medications and carrying around an extra 50 pounds of blubber to protect me in case there was a long cold winter. To say that I did not enjoy this situation would be much too mild. I hated it.

This was in Redding, California and at that time I was living with my late wife’s son and his family. There was Bereavement Group available and I attended a few of the weekly meetings. I was the only male in a group of about 15 and we would sit in a circle and in turn tell our sad tale. I thought it strange that some of the women had been coming to these meetings for a long time -- one every week for more than three years. Another lady was there grieving the loss of her mother, which was not a bad thing I suppose, but I did have trouble with the lady who was there to grieve the loss of her dog. Oh well, to each his own.

Once I invited one of the women to have lunch with me. This turned out to be a gigantic mistake. I picked her up at her house and as soon as we got in the car she explained to me that she was at the Bereavement Group for a different reason than most. As she pointed out, most of the women there were unhappy because their husbands had died. She went on to say, "The day my husband died was the happiest day of my life." For the rest of the lunch she continued to talk about nothing except what a son-of-a-bitch her husband had been and how glad she was he was dead. It was the longest 91 minutes and 32 seconds of my life. We never had a second date.

At that time I was fairly adept at using the Internet and happened to run across one of those “Meet Your Mate” things, though I don’t think that was the actual name. Now, this was in 2001 and that sort of thing was fairly new. In fact, this service was free for women and men could browse. So, I browsed. I certainly wasn’t looking for a mate but thought I might find someone interesting to correspond with via e-mail. You might gather I wasn’t very serious by the way I answered the questions.

Question: “What are you looking for in a mate?”
My answer: “The ability to breath in and out would be essential.”

Question: “What particular interest do you expect in a mate?”
My answer: “Being able to speak in sentences would be nice.”

As you can see I didn’t take this “Search” very seriously. I also didn’t understand some of the women’s stated likes and dislikes. “I like long walks in the rain.” To me that read, “Does not own automobile.”

The pickings were rather slim when we got to my age group but I did see a couple of ladies I thought it would be fun to write to. In order for me to do this I needed to pay a fee of $9, which gave me the e-mail addresses of 3 women. I did that.

One of he ladies lived about 60 miles away so I went to meet her for lunch one day. The first thing she said was, “I want you to know I really am 76 years old. I put 66 on the application because my friends say I only look 66." Apparently her friends have poor eyesight or lie a lot or both.

Another lady intrigued me enough for me to write to her. She was actually one year older than I and she posted a photograph of herself. I learned her name was Jen-Chi. She was Chinese and the widow of S.C. Yuan, who was a rather famous artist. She came to America in 1941 to go to college and has been here ever since. She was a retired dietician with a Masters Degree in that field. This looked interesting so we wrote back and forth expanding our backgrounds. She even asked me computer questions such as, “How did you make that part red?” Then when she wrote back she would have something in red. I was impressed that a woman her age was that at ease with the computer. It wasn’t until much later that she confessed it sometimes took her 2 or 3 hours to write a little 3-line message.

We both regret we did not save our e-mails but after a couple of weeks of more than daily correspondence, Jen-Chi invited me to visit her in Carmel, California where she lived. That was about a 340-mile drive away so I readily accepted but needed to delay until after Christmas.

So, on December 30, 2001 I drove up the driveway of Jen-Chi’s home and met the most delightful little lady I could have imagined. We fell in love almost right away and I have been here ever since. One of the things we undertook as a joint effort is getting rid of the extra 50 pounds. That took about 4 or 5 months and magically my need for diabetic medications gradually disappeared. This all was done under the watchful eye of Jen-Chi and my doctor. I still test regularly and have excellent physical check-ups regularly. I tell people it’s because she has been feeding me nothing but tofu and seaweed but that’s certainly not true. A professional dietician who cares about me is feeding me a good balanced diet. How good can it get?

Not only that but a few days after we actually met I asked Jen-Chi when her birthday was.
She said, “It’s in March.”
“Me too, what day?”
She replied, “The 26th.”
Since that was my birthday I wasn’t sure if she was joking. She wasn’t. We have the same birthday but she is one year older than I. Believe me, when you get to our age, one year difference is the same as no difference.


As I write this, that’s more than 3 years ago and every day is a joy. We often think of it as a miracle. What are the chances that 2 people, our age would even meet on the Internet? In addition we turn out to be so compatible. If that isn’t a miracle it’s as close as I’ll probably ever get. Miracle? Maybe not but at least it seems predestined.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Now some people lift an eyebrow when they hear I was a widower for only eight months before getting into a new relationship. I feel very sorry for people who let things like that get in the way of living a full and happy life. There’s an old saying that implies that “life is for the living” and that’s what we both are doing for as many years as we have left.