Do you remember the love of your life when you were 16? Did you move on, marry other people, and forget about them except when you felt nostalgic?
Well, don’t rule out the possibility of a reunion just yet. In fact, maybe give it another sixty-odd years…
Joyce Kevorkian and Jim Bowman were high-school sweethearts and went to prom together in 1952.
“You should have seen the dress she wore, it was gorgeous! It was big and fluffy,” Jim told PEOPLE.
“She looked like a princess.”
Joyce Kevorkian and Jim Bowman at prom.
But like most teenage romances, they graduated, moved away and didn’t really keep in touch.
“He had his life and I had my life. He probably called me four times over the last 60 years,” Joyce told Buzzfeed News.
Jim had met his wife at University of Illinois and they were married for 58 years before she developed Alzeheimer’s disease and died of a stroke. Similarly, Joyce met her husband of 53 years when she went to university in Wisconsin.
Then, sixty-four years after their first date, Jim wrote Joyce to organise a high-school reunion.
That turned into regular calls and letters, which turned into visits – despite the five-hour commute – which led to them falling in love all over again.
“My Grandma started smiling again, our talks were about her future and what she looked forward to… she became herself again,” Joyce’s granddaughter Anna posted on Facebook.
“I guess the same thing happened to Jim, his daughter called my grandma and thanked her for ‘helping her dad smile again’.”
We’re not crying, you’re crying.
After rekindling their romance, the 81-year-olds wed at Joyce’s senior living facility on April 1st.
“We thought that was a good day for two old fools to get married,” Joyce told Buzzfeed.
Anna told PEOPLE the reunion was definitely worth the extremely long wait.
“It is easy to see when they are together how happy they are. I think that reconnecting with each other is one of the best things that could have happened to them,” she said.
“I don’t think of Jim as replacing my grandpa, he gave me my grandma back.”
Despite neither of the pair expecting to remarry after being widowed, they’re pretty chuffed with how it’s all worked out.
“It makes me feel young again,” Joyce told Buzzfeed. “It makes him feel young again.”
“It makes you feel revived – It’s wonderful.”
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