By Anna Von Reitz
Apparently, Jim's death last fall caused more people to become aware of the significant age difference between me and my husband, a matter of fifteen years. I have been asked about this before and expressed my answers; but, I hardly expected to be called upon by other younger people who have fallen in love with older people for advice.
I have a lot of somewhat emotional responses that flicker across a whole spectrum of experiences and connections.
My Great-Grandfather was 26 years old and the quintessential eligible bachelor, when he fell in love with a 45 year-old widow, the wife of a fallen military officer. She had fallen on hard times after her husband's death and although she held her respected social position, she had few, if any prospects, in an era when favorable marriages often depended on dowries and social advantages.
Certainly, at 45, she was well-past her "use by" date in terms of child-bearing and not even remotely in consideration to become the wife of a man so blessed with fortune, education, youth, and social position.
He fell in love with her anyway, and unleashed a social firestorm of controversy and gossip that still echoes to this day. Their story was brief, beautiful, and terrible. She had been married for over twenty-five years to her first husband, but never had a child. Upon being married to my Great-Grandfather, she became pregnant almost immediately, gave birth to a healthy son, and died in the effort.
In a period of one year, everything was utterly changed. The gossip hardly slowed down. First, it was the scandal of him marrying an old woman beneath his social class. Second, it was God's judgment against the both of them. Their lives were reduced to an object lesson about failure to meet one's social obligations and the dangers of doing anything otherwise.
The chief argument against their marriage was that she was too old and proven barren and could not give him children.
That had been answered, with both triumph and tragedy.
A little over five years later, he died, mainly of a broken heart, leaving his very young son in the guardianship of an elderly second cousin, who decided to move to America to escape the incessant gossip and social commentary that even impacted her own life.
A couple generations removed, I was born out of that union of old and young, an especially devastating union, but as he wrote in his diary, "If I am fated to have but one love in life, I do not regret my choice."
Real love may have regrets, but of a different kind. Regrets of words we didn't speak and actions we didn't take. Times when our courage fails. Times when social interference leads to betrayals. My Great-Grandfather had none of those regrets, whatever else life threw at him.
At the time, the social reproaches faced by a man marrying an older woman were akin to, or even more profound, than those associated with interracial marriages in Europe. He could have chosen someone of a different color or a different faith and faced the same or lesser social backlash.
On the other side of my family, my Grandmother was fifteen years younger than my Grandfather. This was also difficult, though more socially acceptable at the time, owing to the loss of so many men in the American Civil War which erased much of a generation, and also the difficulties that a man faced in accumulating enough property and security to support a wife and family on the American Frontier.
So, again, I am myself the product of love spanning generations. Perhaps that is why the idea of being separated from Jim because of a "substantial" difference in age held no meaning or force for me. Yes, it took more courage. Yes, it flew in the face of conventional thinking. Yes, it came with knowing that in all likelihood, I would face his death before my own, and have to live through the misery of his passing --- and land precisely where I am, alone.
Yes, all of that, and more.
All the social questioning and suppositions. All the glances, all the assumptions. I sometimes played "the bit of fluff" or "arm candy" role just for parody, and then, let people get a glimpse of what actually underpinned the relationship.
It would be just as bad for a young man in love with an older woman, or worse, because being assumed to be a gold-digger with less than honorable attachments is even harder for a man to put up with.
Here's the thing -- "perfect love drives out all fear" 1 John 4:18; when it's true love, the sense of coming home and being where you are meant to be, goes along with a promise that whatever you have to endure, can be endured. And so it is.
The pain and the tragedy of age and the gradual separations that it causes, are offset by luminous growth of compassion and understanding, the great wealth of your older partner's life experience, the gentleness of their sympathy for you.
When you marry someone older -- and I do mean, significantly older, a full decade or more -- you are marrying someone who has already had some rough edges knocked off, someone who has had time to level up and face life's realities. They automatically move to protect you from the worst of it, not out of any parental impulse, but as a partner engaged in a joint enterprise.
Remember Clint Eastwood's character, Frank Horrigan, in the movie "In the Line of Fire", when he famously says, "I know things about pigeons...." And he does know things about pigeons.
It's because your older mate spent those intervening years living life, observing pigeons, and standing in the line of fire.
To the young man who wrote to me and expressed being heartbroken and feeling caged because the only woman he ever loved was ten years older than him --- speak up. Tell her. Don't wait. Make the most of the time you can still have together.
To the young women who know the truth, but hesitate, because his age and experience seems so intimidating -- I give the same advice.
Love has its own wisdom and perfect love allows no cowardice.
The age difference poses its challenges, socially and in practical ways, too -- but it yields its beauties and its benefits, its insights, and the richness of its experience.
For those standing on that particular precipice of decision, I will also recall Joel 2:25: "I will return the years the locusts have eaten."
This may shortly become literal, in the age of Med Bed technology and longevity science, but it is certainly experientially true right now, today.
I have a memory of Jim, face flushed, gold hair jumbled, smile flashing. We'd been out stomping around on cross-country skis on a winter afternoon. He commented that I was "keeping him young" and it's true, I was, simply by being his companion.
We both had to stop a moment and reflect. It's true, he would not have been inspired to strap on skis and go visit the Snowshoe Hares by himself. The magic of the afternoon with its blue shadows and white birches and golden sun slanting through the forest would have still been there, but he wouldn't have accessed it without me tugging on him like a terrier.
God returned years of his life to him through me, and extended the reach and the depth of my experience of life through him. How beautiful is that?
Don't let prejudices and fears stand in your way. We are called to live life without the burdens of those things. To quote Bernard Baruch ---and Dr. Seuss: "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
This is especially important when it comes to choosing a partner in life and getting it right at any age. Always remember that there are just two people in a marriage relationship. The rest of the world gets to sit on the sidelines.
Granna
------------------
To support this work look for the Donate button on this website.
How do we use your donations? Find out here.
