Submitted to the Vicki Gabereau show on CBC Radio in competition for a book. 
They wanted a love story.
I won the book.

My family’s love story of the year concerns my Great Aunt Esther. At 75, she’d been through three marriages, and had nursed her last husband through Alzheimer’s to the inevitable end. She lived in a very modest house in rural Nova Scotia, close to two of her children and their families, caught up in the drama of their lives. She spent every night caring for an elderly lady with cancer.

One day last summer, Esther’s daughter-in-law phoned her from Ontario. “Could my uncle Filip come to Nova Scotia for a visit?” she wondered. “He’s been so lonely since his second wife died last winter.”

Esther remembered Filip from family gatherings. In particular, she’d been impressed by how good he was with his first wife, who had been confined to a wheelchair for 25 years with MS. She readily agreed to host him for a short visit.

When Esther met Filip at the airport, as she told me later, in her Danish accent, she felt “drawn” toward him. Within half an hour, the pieces of their lives were falling together. The visit lasted only a weekend. Shortly afterwards, my grandmother, shaking her head in disbelief at the antics of her crazy little sister, reported that Esther was getting married at Christmas to some Norwegian fellow.

So it was with enormous curiosity that I went to stay with Esther for a couple of days while travelling on business. To my absolute pleasure Filip was there too. I found him a delightful man and we hit it off immediately.

At 86, he was intelligent, curious about the world, eager to travel and do things while he could, and full of gentle advice about life and romance. “At my age,” he said, “you can’t wait around. If you want to marry someone, you just have to do it.”

Esther confessed to me, “Heather, I’ve never felt this way before.” Yet she’d always married for love, certainly not for money; now, in fact, she was sporting her very first diamond ring.

They were deeply, delightfully happy. “Even if it’s only for two years,” they would say, “it will be worth it,” and they would look at each other earnestly and seriously, for that was the length of time Filip had with his second wife before she died. They were sleeping separately, “saving themselves for marriage.” Anyway, Filip assured me, “at our age we don’t get married for the same reasons as younger people.” (He was referring to sex.) “For us, it’s companionship, and we will have the most wonderful companionship.”

So Esther and Filip got married at Christmas, and are planning a Caribbean cruise. Life has a whole new twist of romance and adventure for my Great Aunt Esther. At age 75, she has managed to amuse, inspire and warm the hearts of us younger folk who often have trouble getting together and staying together.