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Challenges of Age Difference

Three years passed and our relationship strengthened with every new challenge.

Will watched me struggle with the issue of not having children while I watched Miranda get pregnant with her first child and I did bring up the possibility of us having children, adopting, or having foster children. He did remind me that he had been crystal clear about his position on more children and I admitted that I had secretly hoped that he would change his mind.

He shook his head and told me on this issue he would not waiver. He looked forward to being a grandfather. He could spoil grandchildren when possible, and then hand them back to their parents when he had had enough. And so I became a step-grandmother at the tender age of 28.

It took me another couple of years before I was able to reconcile the fact that I would not be having children. Another regret about the age difference - I knew we would have made very beautiful children. There will probably always be a small, hidden-away place in my soul that houses this regret but the life that we have made with each other has certainly been rich and fulfilling enough to make it a small price to pay.

We lived together happily for close to nine years before Will’s resolve to never marry again dissolved. I’m not really sure what prompted his change of heart.

I just know that one day; he came to me with documents to do his own divorce and asked me for help in completing them. I was astonished.

“What does this mean? I asked. “Does this mean we are getting married?” He didn’t answer right away but gave me one of those maddening, wicked smiles of his and asked, “Why, do you want to get married?”

I thought that was as close as I was going to get to a proposal but he surprised me by saying, “I know we were supposed to be a one-night stand. Well, it’s been one, long beautiful night.” That was good enough for me. Just when I thought that Will fell short of being romantic, he always did or said something to surprise me. After his divorce became final and as we planned our small, intimate wedding, everything felt romantic and right.

We were married in his brother’s backyard on a cool August afternoon. My sister gave me away and Will’s brother and sister-in-law were our best man and matron of honor.

Will was 51 and I was almost 34. Ten years had passed since Will has begun his pursuit of me. It seems inconceivable to me that that much time had passed.

We didn’t see each other the morning of the wedding. My sister and I had planned a spa day and had manicures and pedicures and had our hair done before getting dressed for the wedding.

The whole day had a dream-like quality to it and yet I felt such clarity. I spent a lot of time going back over our years together. We both knew that the day might come when the age difference between us might get in the way but we decided that life was too short to worry about might be’s and could be’s and we would let love steer our course. I thought I would feel nervous and get a case of cold feet that day but instead I carried the feeling that this was all meant to be.

If I had been nervous that Will would get cold feet, the moment that he saw me walking “down the aisle” quelled any doubts. He looked at me as if I was the most beautiful woman in the world. It was the first day that I felt truly beautiful. His eyes were full of love and he looked as if he’d forgotten about everyone else that was there.

Although it was a traditional ceremony, we didn’t have a formal reception, but a backyard party with friends and family to celebrate our marriage.

It was a great party and we left everyone partying and drove ourselves to the honeymoon suite that I had arranged for that night. Our planned honeymoon of doing nothing but relaxing ended up being a whirlwind trip of traveling all over Ontario but we had a month of unlimited time together, lots of time to renew our commitment to one another.

Will had started seriously thinking of retirement and I felt as it my career was just getting started but I loved the passionate way that Will spoke when telling me of his plans. While on our honeymoon, we did discover the place where we decided we would retire. It was a beautiful place and I was excited as he was as we started making plans.

Retirement, we thought, was still four years away but it was fun planning on what we were going to do. Our plans changed abruptly when Will was offered a golden handshake 2 years later. After quite a bit of soul-searching, Will and I decided he would take the golden handshake and we would retire early. I was about to be the youngest retiree in history.

We spent the next few months planning the next phase of our life. We would leave the city and purchase a park model home in a golf-course community and stay there for the summers and then spend our winters in Florida. We decided to rent in Florida the first year until we found something suitable there to buy. Will’s older sister and her husband already had a retirement home in Florida and we decided we would join them.

I was a little nervous about this next phase in our life but Will’s excitement carried me along and I started joking with our friends that I was on the Freedom 35 Plan.

I quit work a few weeks after Will officially retired and we began to organize our move to the golf course community. Another move away from family and friends but we weren’t going to be too far away - only a couple of hours.

I loved our new home. It was smaller than the townhouse that we had rented but it was all ours. Well ours and the banks. We had a blast that summer. Will played golf every day. I took lessons although

I knew from the get-go that I was going to be completely hopeless. We did go out a few times to play 9 holes together but it became obvious very quickly, that this would be one area where we would not be riding off into the sunset together.