During the Easter season, in 2017, Robert (who is now 54) was perusing CatholicMatch yet again.
He’d been on the site off and on for a while now without finding anyone serious, as well as another dating site, which was even less successful.
Oh, he’d had dates, but they were all of the “one and done” types: people you met once and found they were not good matches at all (of course, even those were an improvement over the one that turned out to be a scammer with a phony profile…).
He was understandably getting frustrated, and just when he’d almost decided to chuck the whole thing he noticed there was something familiar about one of the ladies in his search page. Specifically, something familiar about her smile.
“I know her…” he thought.
He did, as a matter of fact. Robert and Jill (now 46) lived in the same town. They’d even met once, at a Lenten fish dinner a few years back. He’d noticed her smile then too.
“She smiled and looked away from me, pretending that she was not looking, and it stuck with me that day,” he said. He’d assumed she was married.
Turns out she wasn’t. Fancy that.
As for Jill, she found herself attracted to Robert's eyes, and also "his voice quality on the phone." From their first conversation, she wanted to talk to him more.
[click_to_tweet tweet="I was attracted to his voice over the phone. " quote="I was attracted to his voice over the phone. "]
So, Robert sent her a message, and a month afterwards asked for a date: dinner and a country music concert.
He wasn't sure if Jill had a good time on the first date, so he didn't reach back out to her. But she did have a good time!
Jill explained, "I just was not very good at communicating that to him. I think because I was a little nervous." After the date she figured that she and Robert were done because she didn't hear from him for a couple of weeks. However, he couldn't let her go.
He saw Jill walking home from church one morning, and realized he had to reach back out, even though he thought she didn't have a good time on their date. "He messaged me and said I looked pretty," Jill remembers. That's all it took. After that they started messaging again and developed a solid friendship.
Finally, a second date.
They set up a second dinner date, then a pumpkin picking trip to Jill’s family farm, then a trip into Detroit to attend the Beatification Mass for Solanus Casey. “We just enjoyed each other’s company!” Robert said.
Even before their first date, Robert had a strong feeling (he says it was the Holy Spirit, and there doesn’t seem much reason to doubt him) that, “this IS the one.” Come Valentine’s Day almost a year after they met, he confirmed it.
[click_to_tweet tweet="When he got to the booth, he said 'Oh no! I forgot something else,' and pulled out the ring. " quote="When he got to the booth, he said 'Oh no! I forgot something else,' and pulled out the ring. "]
They, naturally, were going out for a dinner date. Only, after they sat down, Robert said he’d forgotten his cell phone in the car and went out to get it. When he returned to the booth, he told Jill, “I forgot something else. Let me see…I have my wallet…hmmm…how forgetful of me…”
Then he reached into his pocket, and handed her an engagement ring.
Jill later said she was “totally surprised” by the proposal, since she’d assumed they were just going out for dinner. At the time, though, she only said, “Yes!”
It rained hard the morning of their wedding day, but that failed to put a damper on the festivities, and the weather surrendered to the inevitable and turned sunny and dry in time for the photo shoot.
Robert also describes how their respective friends and families were all there to share the day with them, and how “people reached out to strangers and made instant friendships at the reception hall. The gift of family was all we prayed for that day.”
How do I love you? Let me count the ways.
They report that, “sharing our faith each day has been the biggest highlight of our marriage,” and that they appreciate the “little things” they do for each other.
Jill says that she particularly loves Robert for the way he "always puts me first." In fact, they even go so far as to say of married life, “We have had zero obstacles or problems. We make a pretty good home.”
[click_to_tweet tweet="Neither had been married until he was in his 50s and she was in her 40s. Never give up hope!" quote="Neither had been married until he was in his 50s and she was in her 40s. Never give up hope!"]
Funny the way things work out; after years of failure, disappointment, and outright deception, just as they were about to give the whole thing up, Robert and Jill discovered that the perfect person was literally right down the street. The lesson of that might be summed up in Robert’s concluding words: “Folks, never give up hope!”
