This week, on the Romance Writers Weekly blog hop, we've been asked to tell you a favorite love story.
How weirdly non-specific is that? I mean...fictional? Non-fictional? My own or someone else's How would I even pick?
So I'm going to give you a very abridged version of the night my grandmother realized she was in love with my grandfather.
Both my mother's parents were born in Ireland but they were from different counties and there was a significant age gap and they wouldn't meet until they were both living in New York.
They were both the eldest of several children and they both lost their fathers at a fairly young age. They both grew up with the expectation that it was their responsibility to help provide for their siblings and their mother. My grandmother became a nurse. This is important to the story because the hospital where she worked provided housing for the nurses, which was run (I believe) a little like a sorority house.
The two of them met at a dance that was put on by some Irish association. My grandfather took one look at her and was immediately smitten. My grandmother, young and with enough responsibility on her plate, was very much not looking to settle down. She was a harder sell. It didn't help that the other nurses were against the match. She was high spirited and fun. He was older and quieter and very serious
They'd been dating awhile and my grandmother gradually realized she needed to make a choice. So she prayed for a sign.
That night was some sort of occasion, all the nurses had dates, including my grandmother. I like to pretend it was Valentine's Day, but I don't think it was. It was winter--that I do know--because it had started to snow at some point in the day. By evening, the buses had stopped running and the other nurses began to receive messages from their (much younger than my grandfather--just sayin' )beaus to let them know they wouldn't be coming.
My grandmother did not get a message, and when my grandfather did not show up at the appointed time, she bitterly concluded that that was her sign: he couldn't even be bothered to let her know he wasn't coming.
Obviously, that was not the case--because otherwise I wouldn't be here to tell the story!
My grandfather hadn't sent a message because he never had any intention of missing their date. It just took him longer than he anticipated to walk there in a blizzard.
That's the night my grandmother realized she'd found a keeper. And the other nurses learned not to overlook the quiet, serious types.
Their story had a lot of ups and downs, grief, heartaches, separations, but they remained madly in love with each other for the rest of their lives.
Next, hop on over to Jenna Da Sie's page and read about another love story.
Both Truth or Dare (the first book in my Games We Play trilogy) and Put a Ring Around the Rosie (the newest story in the series) take place primarily on Valentine's Day. Why not pick them up and enjoy a little topical romance this holiday?
Games We Play trilogy: https://books2read.com/u/4ENoKg
Truth or Dare: https://books2read.com/u/mggr2R
Just Another Day: https://tinyurl.com/Just-Another-Day
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