by Dave Isay
Kelly: Where everybody knew you. Everybody. Every third step we took, somebody said: Hey, Michael, how ya’ doing? How are your parents, Michael? It’s so good to see you Isn’t this a great concert? It was the first time I had ever been with anyone who was that well known within the community. You grew up in Manitowoc. Your parents had a business there; your grandparents had had a business there. You knew everybody or knew of everybody.
Michael: Then I brought you home to dinner.
Kelly: Your dad said, “I like this one, son. She can at least read.”
Michael: My brother jumped in and said, “How good is she in bed?” But that’s my brother—Thanks a lot!
Kelly: And then it just went from there.
Michael: We were sitting in my parents’ home one day, and we had just come from your parents’ house, where your mother had hollered across the house, “Hold out for a rock, dear!” So my mother brings up the fact that we had my grandmother’s ring in the safe, and I just looked at you and said, “There’s your rock. Happy now?” So we now say that it was my mother who made the proposal, but it was your mother who sealed the deal: Hold out for a rock!
Kelly: She knew the priorities.
Michael: So we had arranged to have first a civil ceremony, and then later on to have a religious ceremony. I left my work—“Excuse me, I have to get married”—and I walked across the street, where I met you. And Judge Hazlewood married us.
Kelly: The funniest part about everything was that everybody in town had us paired off before we paired ourselves off. Every other comment was, We thought the two of you would make a great couple! And when I’d ask them why, they’d say something like, Oh, because you’re so much alike. And I thought, Oh my God! Yikes! But I think the best thing is just that you understand me and you support me. It’s really nice to know that, at the end of the day, I can come home to somebody who I know is in my corner.
Recorded in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on July 18, 2010.
STEVEN DAVIDSON KETCHAM, 32, talks with his wife, ALEXANDRA NOGUEIRA BUDNY, 29
Steven Davidson Ketcham: The first time I met your mom was when she came up to me and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Nadia, and I’m going to be your future mother-in-law.” The first words out of her mouth—I hadn’t even met you! And you know what? She was right.
Alexandra Nogueira Budny: My mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001. She had just left her company, and she lost her health insurance and had to sell our house to pay for treatment. So she sold her house and rented a house your dad owned. They found out that they both had single kids in their twenties, and they decided that we were perfect for each other. My mom invited you to dinner, and the second I found out about it, I said, “Call him up and disinvite him! You’re not setting me up!”
Steven: I was pretty disappointed about that, because my stepmother had showed me pictures of you, and I was, like, Wow, she’s really cute! I would love to get to know her. I also knew that you were a writer and you were a student at Princeton. You sounded so interesting.
Alexandra: So they had to find another way for us to meet. They were sneaky.
Steven: They concocted this story: My father wanted me to help him move stuff out of his rental property. So I was taking apart my sister’s playground that had been there for years upon years, and then your mother pulled up with you. And that was the first time I met you.
Alexandra: Then my mother got you to help her move too, so we spent a week together—long, long hours.
Steven: What’s amazing is that there were certain moments that really could have changed everything for us. Without your brother we wouldn’t be together at this moment. You had invited your ex-boyfriend to come over to help your mother move in, and I was there helping your mother as well. I remember you said, “Steve, you can go home. My mother doesn’t need your help anymore, because my boyfriend’s going to be here.” But then your brother said, “Steve, why don’t you stay? My mother would really appreciate it.” If I would have gone home that day, I don’t think I ever would have come back.
Alexandra: Seeing you and him together was so important—how different you were. And then my brother said, “I think you’re perfect for each other, and I don’t think you’re going to give this guy a chance.” So I had to prove him wrong. By the end of the week we were dating. Six months later we were living together in New York.
Steven: Your mother passed a couple of years later, and then my father had pancreatic cancer. I think it bonded us together, because we were forced to either support each other or just move on. And I think our parents realized that if we worked at this we could create something beautiful.
Alexandra: Today is our wedding day. We got married at around noon in city hall.
Steven: I don’t even think I said I do. I said, “Of course I do! I’m the luckiest guy in the world.” Because that’s how I feel. I don’t think I’ve ever been so certain about anything in my entire life, and I didn’t hesitate a single moment.
Before your mother passed, I made a promise to her that I would always take care of you and love you. If you were ever in a similar situation with my father, what would you say to him before he passes?
Alexandra: I would tell him that I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I would never let you out of my grip. Ever.
Recorded in New York, New York, on July 18, 2008.
Lost
NORMA TAYLOR, 78, talks to her daughter, RANDI TAYLOR, 52
Norma Taylor: I was standing on the subway platform smoking a cigarette, and I turned and saw this handsome young man coming down the steps. He took my breath away. We got on the same train, and he sat across from me. I just knew that that was the man I was going to marry. I’ve never had that kind of feeling before, and I’ve never had it since. I didn’t even try to flirt with him, because I knew that if I didn’t meet him that day, I was going to meet him another day—he was my destiny.
We got off at the same station, and I walked in front of him. Then he said to me, “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to smoke on the subway?” That sort of took me off guard. I said, “No, I didn’t know that.” We started walking together, and he asked me what I was doing that evening. He came to pick me up later, and we went out. That’s the way I met him.
Dan was kind, and he was caring, and most of all, I loved the way he loved me. He always made me feel special, and he always encouraged me. Having grown up in a home where I felt like I couldn’t do anything right, he made me feel like I had wings and I could fly. He used to go to work in the morning, and then he would call. I would say to him, “You just left,” and he would say to me, “I just wanted to hear the sound of your voice.”
He had been complaining that he wasn’t feeling well for a long time. He went to the doctors, but they couldn’t find anything wrong. So he went into the VA hospital, and they did all kinds of tests, and they discovered he had cancer of the pancreas. The doctor said that once he felt the first pain, it was already too late. We couldn’t have saved him.
Shortly after he died, I started to doze off, and all of a sudden I felt a kiss on my cheek. I opened up my eyes, because I thought I was alone. There was no one there, but I could still feel his lips on my cheek.
He took wonderful care of me, and when I lost him, I was adrift. I didn’t know how to take care of anything. And I had to deal not only with losing him but with adjusting to taking on the responsibility of a house and bills and children, and I had to go back to work. I really didn’t know how to manage, but always, in the back of my mind, I would hear him saying, You can do it! You can do it! It was that love and that encouragement and that confidence that he gave me while he was alive that enabled me to carry on after he was gone. I wanted to do it for him, so that he would be proud of me.
I talk to him all the time. On our anniversary, on his birthday, and on
Valentine’s Day I buy cards for him and just write whatever I’m feeling. And if the tears come down and they stain the ink, that’s okay. It keeps him close to me, and that’s really what I need. The last card I bought was this past March first, on the anniversary of his death. I wrote, “It’s 37 years, but you’re still with me and you’ll be with me always. You were my life.”
I never wanted people to feel sorry for me that I lost Dan, because I always felt I was so lucky to have had him at all. I would’ve rather had him for that short time than been married a hundred years to somebody else.
Recorded in New York, New York, on March 12, 2006.
LEROY A. MORGAN, 85, remembers his late wife, VIVIAN
Leroy A. Morgan: When I came out of the army, they had job openings for the post office, but you had to take an entry exam. They had about five hundred guys taking this test, and I finished number eleven. Vivian was also at the post office, and I used to kid her about it. And she’d say, “Leroy, you were number eleven, but I was number two!” She never did let me forget that.
She had a beautiful smile. We used to go out for coffee breaks, and then later on we started going out to shows. About six months later I asked her, Would she marry me?
My wife and I were in Philadelphia, and we saw a sign that said SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE. I never will forget it: It had six points to always say to your wife or husband, and the first one was YOU LOOK GREAT. The second one was CAN I HELP? The third one, LET’S EAT OUT. The fourth one was I WAS WRONG. And the fifth one was I AM SORRY. But the last and most important one was I LOVE YOU. That was it. There were six statements, and it said if you follow that, you’ll have a successful marriage. So we followed it, and we did have a successful marriage.
If she was working out in the yard, I’d come out: “Can I help you?” And when we’d come home from work, and I knew she was tired, I’d ask her, “You want to go out to eat?” To keep her from working and cooking at the same time.
It lasted fifty-three years, two months, and five days. It’s been rough, but every morning when I wake up she’s included in my prayers, and I talk to her every night when I go to bed. She was something. One thing: If they ever let me in those pearly gates, I’m going to walk all over God’s heaven until I find that girl. And the first thing I’m going to do is ask her if she would marry me and do it all over again.
Recorded in Chicago, Illinois, on July 27, 2007.
PATRICIA LOUISE FOREMAN-BATES, 84, talks with her daughter KAY LEWIS, 58
Patricia Louise Foreman-Bates: There was just something about George. I met him at a dance, and at that time he wore his hair kind of long, in sort of a ducktail, I guess they called it. I remember telling my sister Rosemary that he was such a nice guy, but I said, “I really don’t like guys that wear their hair long.” I got over that. He told me later that his mother said, “Do you know that she’s Catholic?” Because that was an issue.
Kay Lewis: He was Lutheran.
Patricia: That’s right. But that just didn’t seem to matter to George. He said, “I like Catholics. They don’t believe in divorce.” I was twenty-three when we were married. I gave up my Irish name of Doyle to become a Foreman. I became very proud of the Foreman name. And we had seven children.
Kay: Sounds like it was love at first sight.
Patricia: It was. It really was. I loved that guy and he loved me too. Once we stopped at a restaurant, and he took you inside with him. You were probably three years old. The clerk said, “What a pretty little girl!” And he said, “You should see her mom!”
George died when he was forty. It seemed like the end of my life. I remember going to the library to look for books to help, because I thought, I don’t know how to be a widow. It was a difficult time. In one way I made it more difficult, because I didn’t want people to help me. I didn’t want people to look at us and say, It’s so sad about the Foreman family. I just felt like I had to work things out by myself. I wanted to keep everything as much the same as I could. I wanted you to get involved in your school activities and go to the dances.
Kay: He was always in our conversation. I think we even teased him, making jokes about the things he had done or said. You kept him very much alive for us, and you never made us feel like there was something wrong if we were laughing.
Patricia: Oh, no, no. There was joy. You know, there’s a time for tears, and it isn’t when you’re with children who don’t know the depth of your loss. I remember looking at you all and thinking, How can they live a life without a father? This is too much to ask of them! But I think you all rose to the occasion.
I never intended to marry again. I was a widow for twenty years, while you kids were growing up.
Kay: Never even dated.
Patricia: I remember one time a gentleman asked me out for dinner, and when I refused he said, “You know I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m just asking you to go out to dinner with me.” I just didn’t think about it, you know?
But one day a secretary from one of the other buildings where I work introduced me to Warren and arranged for us to go on a date. Teresa and Margie were home from college, and so they were getting me ready, doing my eyes and all this, and I thought, What have I signed up for? So I said, “At eleven o’clock, if I don’t think that I want to be with him the rest of the evening, I’m going to call and have you come get me.”
We went to a dance. Eleven o’clock I called, and I said, “He’s a great dancer. Go to bed.”
Kay: And you guys danced for how many years?
Patricia: Quite a few. [Laughs.]
After Warren’s death, which was just this past February, there are times that I just feel like I need to turn and talk to him. But that’s okay. You face death twice like that, and I think it’s a growing experience.
I am alone, but I have never felt lonely. I’m surrounded by family. And I gave you security at one time, you are giving me such security back right now. There’s been a lot of changes in my life, but it has always been love that has carried me through.
Recorded in Dayton, Ohio, on April 24, 2010.
GLORIA ROBERTS, 58, talks about her husband, NATHANIEL, 73
Gloria Roberts: I met Nathaniel at work. He was coming down the hall, and we just kind of exchanged hellos. It had been nine years since my first husband passed, and his wife had also passed away. From the beginning he was very down-to-earth and easy to talk to. We started growing closer and closer, and then he had asked me to be his lady. I told him no: “We’re best friends. I don’t need to cross that bridge.” He asked me again a couple months later, and finally I told him I would give it a shot. I found it was easy being with Nathaniel, and so we were married in 1997. We had a huge wedding, and we had all of our children participate.
In 2007, Nathaniel was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. I think there was a part of me that said, He’s going to be just fine, because that’s how I could handle it emotionally. But I could see changes in his behavior. He could never find keys. He would go into the kitchen, and when he would come out the water would be running. Our conversations changed. He kept repeating himself, asking me the same questions over and over again. His personality had been outgoing, and now he’s really quiet.
He was a ballroom dance instructor, and he’s a wonderful dancer, very light on his feet. We used to do a lot of the ballroom dances: the waltz, the swing. He loved doing the East Coast Swing and the West Coast Swing and the Latin dances. He is really good at moving his hips. He doesn’t remember the routines anymore—a lot of that has gone—but we still get up and dance. Sometimes I’ll just put some music on and say, “Come on, we’re just going to freestyle. Let’s just dance.” And he loves that.
He tells me daily how much he loves me, and I truly love him. Whenever we kiss it’s five times: one, two, three, four, five. And everywhere we go, he lets people know: “This is my wife
.” When I take him to a doctor’s appointment: “My wife is coming in with me—she’s my everything.” How can you not love that?
But sometimes I’m just sitting there, and I’ll burst into tears. I miss my husband. I grieve the man he used to be. There are times when I think he’s fully present. He may have a day like that, maybe two days, and then he goes back into that other place. I find myself wanting to argue, but it doesn’t do any good.
When my first husband passed I was numb, and I really couldn’t cry, but I find with this one I cry all the time. It’s a different kind of grief, and to me it’s deeper, because I can see him, but he’s not there. I truly can’t imagine my future without Nathaniel being in it, but I know that Alzheimer’s progresses. So I’ve made the decision to stand and to love my husband as he is. That changes all the time, but it’s all I can do.
Recorded in Seattle, Washington, on October 24, 2008.
DOLORES VELARDE, 79, talks with her daughter LINDA VELARDE, 54
Dolores Velarde: My mom and I went to the little Polish corner store, and I happened to see this man that looked very handsome to me. I said to my mom, “Look at him. Isn’t he gorgeous?” She said, “Don’t say that—you’re too young!” But I looked at him, and he looked at me.
The next time I went, the owner said, “Here’s a note for you. It’s from this fella you were eyeing. He was eyeing you too.” I went outside with the note, and he was waiting for me. He said, “What’s your name?”
Linda Velarde: I think we have to note that you were just fifteen, and Dad was twenty-one at the time. So when you met him, you started talking . . .
Dolores: We would just walk the blocks. We had to be careful, because not too many Polish boys in the area looked kindly upon the Mexican people.