Laughter and Love Found in Hawaii!
10
On the beautiful island of Oahu, Rose Marie, 80, searched online for a “Match for Catholics.”
After living as a widow for 16 years, her family members encouraged her to start dating again. She first signed up for “Italian Match,” but soon realized that the most important quality in her list of 50 requirements for a husband was a shared Catholic faith. Unaware that such a dating site existed, Rose Marie was thrilled to stumble upon CatholicMatch from her Google search.
After creating her profile, it didn’t take long for Rose Marie to attract a host of suitors. The beautiful Italian-blooded hula dancer drew the attention of many men, especially because of her idyllic island location. “Every man wanted to move to Hawaii and marry me,” she humorously recalls. One day in September of 2019, Rose Marie received a text message from an unknown number—it was a picture of a man with two small children.
“Who are you?” Rose Marie replied. “Bill,” responded the man.
“Bill who?”
“Bill from CatholicMatch.”
Rose Marie deduced that he was one of the many men who had been messaging her on CatholicMatch. After receiving an overwhelming amount of messages from her profile, Rose Marie responded with her phone number, asking the suitors who were truly interested to reach out to her via phone call.
“Call me,” Rose Marie responded.
3 weeks later, Bill found himself flying out to Hawaii.
Within a couple of months on the site (including one in-person date, which ended up in a mutual and immediate “no way!”), he found Rose Marie. After that infamous text message and the phone call that followed, Bill and Rose Marie shared daily phone calls, many of which lasted into the late hours of the night for Bill (who lived five hours ahead of Hawaiian time). Bill told Rose Marie three weeks in that he was going to fly out to Hawaii and marry her.
Bill, a retired aerospace engineer from San Antonio, was 82 when he decided to try online dating. After losing his first wife to a 12-and-a-half year battle with Alzheimer’s, he struggled to find his purpose in life. Not long after his late wife’s funeral, he sat in a chair and prayed to God to let him die. Finally, with the help of his son and daughter-in-law, Bill began volunteering at a nearby hospital as a greeter. This brought new life back to him, and several months later, he found himself looking at an ad on the back of his church bulletin for CatholicMatch.
“No way!” She responded. “I have four eyes and three arms and am completely hideous.”
But nonetheless, Bill’s charm and persistence prevailed, and Rose Marie found herself booking him a hotel room in her beautiful island paradise.
His children were a little hesitant.
As Bill prepared for his trip, which would take him to not just one, but two, islands of Hawaii, his children expressed some caution and concern for their elderly father. “Dad, you barely know this woman and you’ve never been to Hawaii. What if they kidnap you?!”
After flying to Oahu, Rose Marie met Bill and they flew together the next day to the Big Island to meet her son. As they drove from the airport to his home, Rose Marie’s son pulled off the road into a deserted area. After waiting for several minutes in silence, Rose Marie finally asked him what they were doing. Her son responded, “Well, I thought they were supposed to meet us here.”
“Who is meeting us here?” Rose Marie demanded. “The kidnappers!” Her son smirked.
Bill suddenly went flush, to which Rose Marie responded, “he’s teasing you! Who would pay all this money for an 80-year-old man?!”
A lightheartedness and sense of humor has been a hallmark of their relationship.
During that first visit, after another crazy driving incident—this time with Rose Marie unknowingly driving 60mph over the speed limit in an electric car and nearly giving Bill a stroke—Rose Marie and Bill jet-setted back to Oahu. Then, while slow dancing at a Waikiki beach club, Rose Marie realized she wanted to marry Bill...eventually.
Bill, already convinced of his love for Rose Marie, asked her the next day to take him to her jeweler. Instead, she took him to Costco. “They have jewelry there, and I needed some milk and eggs any way.” The couple decided on buying a promise ring—not an engagement ring yet. But, when the jeweler took the ring out of the cage and handed it to Bill, he got down on one knee anyway and asked Rose Marie to marry him!
Rose Marie is well-known in the area, so they suddenly found themselves surrounded by a ton of people she knew, who were all egging Bill on. She finally relented, and they went off to purchase the promise ring, along with her other groceries.
A real engagement, a postponed wedding, and a loving life together.
In the months that followed, Bill and Rose Marie’s relationship grew. They met each other’s family and friends through back-and-forth visits to the mainland and Hawaii. On New Year’s Eve 2019, Bill planned a true proposal with a real engagement ring, surrounded by friends. They happily planned their island wedding of about 300 guests for the spring of 2020.
But, COVID disrupted those plans. They devastatingly postponed their wedding a couple of times, and were finally able to have it on June 26, 2021. The regulations at the time only allowed them to have 50 guests, yet most of their family were in attendance. Rose Marie’s four sons gave her away, and nearly every one of her grandchildren stood up in the wedding. The ceremony was at Rose Marie’s church and it included all the traditions of a Hawaiian wedding, including handmade leis for every person in the wedding party. “It smelled like heaven!”
Rose Marie and Bill kept their sense of humor even on their wedding day. As part of her wedding makeup, Rose Marie wore false eyelashes. But, on her way up the aisle, the eyelashes fell out of place! Upon seeing her, Bill lovingly told her, “Honey, you look beautiful, but please take those eyelashes off—they’re stuck to your cheek!”
At the reception, Rose Marie performed a special hula of love for Bill, who sat holding his heart as he watched his bride. The two affirm that their faith continues to be the most important and blessed part of their relationship together. Always seen holding hands together during Mass, many other couples tell Bill and Rose Marie how their love encourages them to be more loving in their own marriages.
Aloha to the happy couple!