Jan Fowler

is author of the best-selling book, “Hot Chocolate for Seniors”(winner of national & international awards); winner of Gold Halo Award from the So. California Motion Picture Council for Outstanding Literary Achievement; winner of First Place Excellence in Journalism Award (SPJ –Southern CA); Town & Gown “Phenomenal Woman” Award; former television host & KSPA radio host of “Senior Living at its Best with Jan Fowler”; speaker, contributing author for “Savvy Women Revving Up for Success”; founder of Starburst Inspirations, Inc. 501(c) (3) nonprofit which supports Redlands Drug Court. www.janfowler.com. Jan welcomes feedback and comments about her columns and invites you to leave her a message on her website.

Finding Love After 60

Dear Readers, The following is one of many true-life stories depicting how couples whom I know, met and fell in love.  Hope it gives you gives you encouragement and hope for your own future.

Discovering Romance on a Bus

By Marilyn

Tom and I met on a bus trip.

I am responsible for hospitality for my very active senior club.  On one of our monthly Nostalgia Diners (fourteen people who explore local restaurants) day trips I saw a man who was sitting all alone.  He wasn’t exactly my type and it wasn’t a pick-up, but I sat across the aisle from him and did my usual ‘getting to know you’ speech, which promotes our club, and then asked about him.  He spent the entire trip telling me that he had lost his wife fifteen months ago and how his daughters had made him get out of his house and join our club.  He talked about his memories of his beloved wife, her illness, his daughters, his eleven grandkids.

One month later, he sat next to me, and we talked again.  I told him a bit about myself too.  It went on like that once a month for what felt like forever.  I began to like him, but it had been forty-six years since he dated, so it took him five months to ask me out.

Then he and I met for breakfast, and at the end of our date he asked, “Where is this relationship going?”  I responded, “We don’t have a relationship!  Let’s develop a friendship before we try for a relationship.”  So we did.

Six weeks later, he inquired, “How’s the friendship going?”  I replied, “Rock solid!”  From that point on, we went from holding hands to kissing good night to all the other bases.  He told me that he loved me, but it took me a bit more time to talk about love.  Eventually, however, I learned to trust my feelings, and now we never leave each other without saying those words.

And even though Tom and I have very little in common, we have been together for two years now.  He is seventy-five, a retired meat cutter; I am a seventy-year-old retired schoolteacher.  He doesn’t care to read anything but the newspaper, and I am a voracious book reader.  I love movies, he does not.  He likes hockey; I love baseball.  He loves long bus trips, and I prefer cruises.  He loves to cook; I like to eat.  We spend a lot of time learning about each other and about the world we live in.

At our age, when you find someone who makes you laugh, you don’t let them go.  Tom and I are having a great time together!