Doug & Mary Found Romance and Happiness Again
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Doug, 72, feared that Mary, 68, had stood him up. Their first date was to be Mass and breakfast, but it looked to him that Mary was going to be a no-show. Standing outside his church, he turned to go in because Mass was about to start when suddenly he heard the blaring of a car horn. There was Mary racing into the parking lot honking, waving and hollering, “Wait, here I am! Here I am!”
Immediate Connection
Doug, who resides in Largo, Florida, knew from the moment that he saw Mary’s profile, in October of 2014, that she was the one; he was instantly attracted to her smile and he liked how involved she was with the Catholic faith. “Her words grabbed me, and so did her picture,” he recalls.
Mary had been on CatholicMatch a year, but she had never met anyone in person. Many people in her life had encouraged her to join, but she really wasn’t enthusiastic about being a member.
That changed when Doug messaged her.
He possessed all of the qualities that were important to her—he loved the Faith and he was involved in parish life. “We had all the same beliefs about the Faith and we felt the same way about family.”
The two of them communicated for a couple of weeks before their first date, and every Sunday afterward they would meet for Mass. "I found him attractive because he was unassuming, humble, and very devout at Mass," says Mary, who lives nearby in Clearwater, Florida.
The couple would also get together for dinner, go to movies, or watch television together. “We just got so comfortable with each other. He was just so sweet,” Mary shares.
Although quite different personality-wise, the two bonded over their faith and their sorrow. Doug had lost his wife in April of 2014, and Mary had lost her husband and two of her adult children. It was Doug’s longtime priest who encouraged him to do something about his loneliness. He told me, “‘You come to Mass every day and you cry every day. You need to start relaxing and something will happen.’ At the end of Mass, I turned the bulletin over and I saw an ad for CatholicMatch. I thought, ‘What the heck. Why don’t I give a try because it worked for me the first time.’ Back in the 60s, I met my first wife through a diocesan program in Florida, which helped Catholics find their spouses."
Gift From God
Within four years, Mary had first lost her son from an accidental drug overdose, then her husband of 35 years from a brain tumor and lung cancer, and then one of her daughters—who had been ill for most of her life—died at the age of 35 also of a brain tumor. Mary wanted to die too, but she knew that she had to stay okay for her surviving daughter who was also mourning these losses. “Until I met Doug, I was just the saddest person,” she remembers.
Consequently, when he came into her life, with all of his tenderness and kindness, she finally felt peace and contentment—something she thought she would never experience again. “When I tell Doug that he’s a gift, he always says: ‘God planned this all for us.’”
They Knew What They Wanted
On New Year’s Eve right after the ball dropped, Doug got down on one knee and asked Mary for her hand in marriage. Mary was surprised, but she looked at him and said, “Yes.” Although Doug's four children were supportive, Mary's daughter thought maybe it was too soon to think about marriage because they had only been dating two and a half months. She wanted them to wait a year and date a little longer.
“Mary and I agreed that we didn’t want to wait,” says Doug.
Mary adds, “I think that between the two of us we have over 80 years of marriage experience. We pretty much knew what we were doing, and we knew enough about each other to know that this was a good match. We really fell in love, which surprised me and so I am sure it surprised my daughter.”
It didn’t take Mary’s daughter long to come around. She, along with the whole family, had noticed how happy Doug was making Mary. Doug’s family also noticed a change in his mood for the better since meeting Mary.
On May 23, 2015, the couple was married by Doug’s priest. It was Monsignor’s last wedding Mass because he retired that day. It was supposed to have been a small wedding but ballooned to around 70 guests. Afterward, they went on a nearly three-month honeymoon: traveling first to Clearwater Beach, then flying to New Orleans, and then traveling along the East coast in Doug’s RV sightseeing and visiting family and friends.
Pure Joy
Doug has come to realize since meeting Mary that God did not mean for him to be alone and sad. Every day he gets to see the smile that so attracted him and there’s the added benefit that she’s “one heck of a good cook.”
“His children thank me for giving him his life back,” Mary says. She also says, “He’s very romantic. For people, our age to have a romantic relationship is a joy.”