Colleen was escaping pain and insecurities with alcohol, and it was ruining her life.
She had come back home to the Catholic faith, but she continued to use drinking to cope. "I hid my alcoholism from others, and many people had no idea. But I knew I had a dependency that was growing worse and worse as I aged. I felt Jesus tell me: 'Follow me; I will heal you; just let me lead you.' All I knew to do at that point was to go to daily Mass. This changed my life forever."
Frequent confession, Adoration, and daily Mass gave Colleen the grace to continue to be sober and live a life centered on Christ. "I revamped my life with new friends and a new job. I branched out in the church community. It was only then by God's precious gifts and graces and the people He put into my life, that I was able to really learn to love myself, accept my faults, and truly be myself. As an introvert, this was very difficult."
Near the school where she taught, in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, she found a church that had the perfect daily Mass time for her schedule. One day while she was praying there, she was struck with the thought that it was her future husband’s parish.
Three years after Jack's wife died, he decided he was ready for another relationship.
Jack had been married to Cindy for 22 years when she passed away from cancer. They had had a happy marriage and adopted two daughters. They met in St. Louis, Missouri but moved to Atlanta to be closer to Cindy's sister who had been diagnosed with cancer. Ten years after her sister died, Cindy also died.
In November 2013, three years after Cindy's death, Jack felt ready for a relationship again. “My mother used to say that when a widowed spouse remarries, it’s the highest form of flattery for their deceased spouse. It shows how much they loved being married. When marriage has been a beautiful experience, you want to regain that. It’s not giving up on your spouse; it’s not anything negative about your wife before. It’s really all about that marriage having been such a blessed experience,” Jack said.
With a busy work schedule as a pediatric cardiologist, it was difficult for Jack to find someone compatible. He made sure his daughters who were in their late teens, were ready for him to start dating. He checked out CatholicMatch, and scrolling through, he found Colleen. He signed up to email her.
Colleen had been on CatholicMatch for eleven years before Jack contacted her.
She dated had now and then, but she didn’t click with anyone romantically. She made friends through the CatholicMatch groups and found the site encouraging. An engagement 17 years before that didn't work out made her careful in pursuing relationships.
“Jesus came first, and I longed for Him more than I did a husband. I knew my husband was not going to fulfill my every need,” Colleen said. Setting aside perfectionism was a struggle for her. Being content in Christ was a way for her to let go of unhealthy expectations and helped ready her for the day when she found the man meant for her.
When Colleen got Jack’s email, she checked his profile and decided that he seemed nice enough to give it a shot. She appreciated that he didn’t waste time with superficial chats. He quickly asked her to meet him for lunch and golfing, a sport they both liked.
Although the first date went well, Colleen wasn’t so sure about Jack after the second date.
A friend encouraged her though not to give up. “She said to keep going out with him until he quits asking me out,” Colleen said. Her friend’s advice paid off. The more time she spent with Jack the more she liked him. By the fourth date, she was ready to be in a relationship with him.
After dating for a month, Jack’s daughters met Colleen and told Jack they liked her. With his daughters’ blessings, they continued to date. “Our romance was an evolution over the time we were dating,” Jack said. “She was what I was looking for in a partner in life. I thought she was going to be someone who would help me get to heaven. We have differences; we have very different personalities.” Although they are different, they have many things in common, especially faith and their love of family.
Family was a priority to them both
Colleen is one of nine children; Jack is an only child. Both of them believe family is an important priority.
Colleen only introduced men she was seriously dating to her family. “I was slow to tell my family about him. They all met him at my nephew’s wedding. We had been dating about six months then. My family just loved him!” Colleen said.
Jack and his daughters took Colleen with them to his hometown of St. Louis to meet his family. “Colleen got stuck with the girls in one room, and I got my own room — that’s a testament to her character to stay in a room with two teenage girls,” Jack said. “My family adored her. I don’t have a lot of close living family. My parents are deceased; I have no brothers and sisters. My closest living relative is my Aunt Rose, and she absolutely loved Colleen.”
It was also important to Jack that Colleen meet his former in-laws. “Cindy’s family loved her, too. They’re a big part of my life still. Colleen has been wonderful and gracious to accept them as extended family.”
The church where Colleen went to daily Mass turned out to be Jack's home parish after all.
After dating for nearly a year, they met with Jack's priest to get his direction and thoughts about marriage. Jack and Colleen had discussed marriage throughout their relationship. They felt they had a deep understanding of each other's views and expectations. (Colleen's priest told her that she should advertise for CatholicMatch because Jack was so impressive.)
Now it was time to see what Jack's priest thought: he completely agreed that the couple was meant for one another. The conversation went so well that he put them on his calendar for their wedding. Colleen couldn't believe it.
“I said, ‘But Jack, you haven’t even proposed to me yet! We don’t have a ring, and he thinks we’re getting married!’” Colleen recalled. Jack took it in stride, and they decided to let the wedding date stay on the priest's calendar while they talked more about getting engaged.
Jack asked Colleen's dad for permission to marry her. Even though Jack was in his mid-fifties, he felt it was important to ask. “I didn’t doubt that he would say yes, but I told Colleen I was going to abide by his answer.” Jack said that if parents don't feel right about their son or daughter's engagement, it's usually for good reasons. Colleen's dad wholeheartedly gave his approval.
Despite the backing of family and their priests, Jack’s plans to propose to Colleen kept running into one hurdle after another.
The engagement ring was delayed because the jeweler had made a mistake. Jack put a rush on a new ring, but it still arrived later than expected. The ring was finally ready just before Colleen’s birthday in December. He made reservations at what he thought was an upscale restaurant. But when he and Colleen arrived, the restaurant had an infelicitous odor of fish.
They backtracked across town to another restaurant which had the romantic atmosphere that Jack was hoping for. He had given her a purse for a birthday gift in the car; so Colleen thought that the proposal would be another day. When he got down on his knees and proposed to her at the restaurant, she was shocked!
The couple were married in April 2015 and attribute their happy relationship to having always put God first.
Jack admitted that he doesn’t like weddings in general, but he felt fortunate to have had two beautiful weddings. He and Colleen married in April 2015.
“I was less nervous at this wedding than I expected to be. You don’t train to be remarried in your fifties, but it was really a holy day. It just felt like we had the grace of God and the support and love of relatives-- Colleen’s, mine, and Cindy’s,” Jack said. Cindy’s brother was Jack’s best man.
"I had no doubts at the wedding. There was the total peace of God, and nothing went wrong," Colleen said. After their wedding, they went to St. Lucia for their honeymoon.
They both believe that the success of their relationship has been their foundation of making God first in their priorities. They love to pray together, especially the Rosary.
"Having a personal relationship with Christ is the most important thing," Colleen says. She thinks that being at peace with God's timing and building a relationship with Jesus are key to waiting until the day you find your future spouse. "People need to have faith that God will bring them their desires," she says.
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