She Almost Didn't Renew Her Subscription

“I’m a bit nervous as this is my first date in 40 years,”

Steve admitted to Rosie when they met at the Riverwalk in her hometown of Naperville, Illinois. Putting him at ease, Rosie smiled and took his hand as they crossed the street and began their walk. 

It was not a typical first date. “We shared some pretty personal things about our lives instead of the usual small talk,” Steve said. Both their journeys had been long and difficult. 

Rosie had been married for 35 years when her divorce occurred. She and her former spouse tragically lost their young adult daughter Donna. Each handled their grief differently. “After a time through counseling, we both concluded that it would better to each start a new life,” Rosie said. Shortly after their divorce, Rosie applied for an annulment, which was granted within a year. 

Steve’s first wife had passed away. “Losing my wife was the most painful experience of my life,” he said. “It made me realize how much I needed to have someone in my life to love and who would love me in return.” 

In time, Steve received three lucid dreams of his departed wife.

“God let me know that she was accepted into His heavenly kingdom and that one day I would join her.” With this revelation, he was able to joyfully let her go and build a new life with a Catholic woman.

Steve’s widowed father suggested he try CatholicMatch. “I thought it was a good way to get to know someone before an actual date,” Steve said. He was on the site for two weeks when he received a birthday greeting on April 9 from Rosie. He enjoyed reading her profile. 

Rosie had signed up for the service after seeing an ad in her parish bulletin. Her son met his wife 13 years prior on a Catholic website. 

But after nearly five months of being matched with men who were unresponsive or lived too far away, Rosie decided not to renew her subscription. 

That’s when she connected with Steve. 

“The fact that he was a practicing Catholic meant a lot to me,” Rosie said. “Steve mentioned that I was the only woman whose profile he had viewed that mentioned her faith meant so much to her.” 

It seemed like a promising start. After a few exchanges, however, Rosie stopped hearing from Steve. She assumed nothing would come of their brief communication. Four months later, in early August, Steve surprised her with a long message. He had missed her last email because he was preoccupied with a close relative who had passed away. 

“He apologized profusely in his long and entertaining email,” Rosie said. “That was encouraging to me.” Once they resumed communication, it only took a short while for Rosie to trust Steve with her personal email address.

As they began dating, Steve appreciated how loving, thoughtful, and attractive Rosie was. She also found him attractive, attentive, and vivacious. 

She appreciated that he was upfront that he wanted a long-term relationship. 

They enjoyed getting to know each other and sharing their mutual love of the outdoors, family, and their faith. Both looked forward to receiving daily emails. Rosie wanted Steve to know the good traits she observed in him, so she suggested they share daily affirmations. 

Each day, they went through the alphabet and chose a trait based on a new letter. Letters like Q, X, Y, and Z made it a fun and creative challenge, with them sometimes spelling a word backwards. “With Rosie being a writer, it was a challenge to come up with new affirmations that were different from hers,” Steve remembered. “Sometimes she had five per letter!”

Though they had only known each other for a short while, Steve realized a couple weeks before Thanksgiving that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Rosie. Steve’s extended family invited her to join them for Thanksgiving. “Everyone was quite welcoming, which warmed my heart,” Rosie said. 

That evening, they returned to Steve’s house and listened to oldies. As they danced, he started talking over the music. He told Rosie he felt he had known her much longer than he actually had. 

Suddenly, he dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him. “Wow, that was so romantic and a bit unexpected,” she recalled. “Of course, I said ‘Yes!’”

Steve’s family welcomed Rosie from the start. Rosie’s daughter was happy to hear that her mother was engaged. Her son, however, felt the opposite. Rosie counseled with the priest whom she hoped to celebrate her wedding Mass. “His advice was to go forward with our plans as he had seen cases where adult children had spoiled things for their parents,” Rosie said. 

“I knew that I loved Steve and wanted to build a new life with him, so we proceeded with our plans.”

Rosie and Steve hope to marry June 6, 2020 at her home parish of Saint Raphael. They’ve planned a full liturgy and Rosie has written some of the music they’ll use. They intend to honeymoon near Nashville. “We already have tickets for the Grand Ole Opry,” Rosie said. “We are grateful to Saint Raphael, the patron saint of CatholicMatch, for helping us find each other.”