- When Joy Gray's late husband Allan died, she didn't date anyone seriously for 21 years.
- Then, in 2010, her sons and daughter-in-law created a profile for her on a dating website.
- She met Ted Gray, and on their first date, he took her on his plane.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Joy Gray, an 80-year-old woman from Porepunkah, Australia. It has been edited for length and clarity.
My late husband Allan was my childhood sweetheart. After getting married, we had three boys, and my life seemed absolutely perfect. I loved my family, and I adored Al. I had a fabulous job and a wonderful family home.
In November 1988, when Al was 45, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The specialist took one look at him and thought it would be a walk in the park. He was this big, strong man who'd never been sick a day in his life.
It turned out we only had three months left, and I was a widow at 44. I can remember saying to my brother, "My heart's not just broken, it's been smashed." I thought I'd never smile again.
Our sons were 19, 17, and 13 when Al died. It was hard. Al was one of these hands-on dads. He used to run the pitch when the boys played rugby. He was a youth group leader and would go on school camps with the boys when they were younger. He built a 21-foot yacht so we could sail. We all adored him.
After Al died, I didn't date for a long time
A week after Al died, I was back full-time teaching. It was a private grammar school, and they had deaf and hard-of-hearing kids integrated from prep to Year 12. I mainly taught math and science to those students.
Putting my all into my work helped. There were times I'd get in the car after work with my sons, and I'd put my hand on the gearstick, and then the tears would come. One of their hands would come over mine, and they'd say, "We're going to be OK, Mum." Their support, the support of my extended family and friends, and my deep faith were what got me through.
In the years that followed, I didn't meet anyone. There was the odd date, but nothing really special.
One day, about 12 years after Al died, my car broke down. It was in peak traffic in Melbourne, and I truly thought I was going to get killed. Someone did come to help, in the end, but it made me and my family start thinking that it would be nice to have someone to take care of me again.
Eventually, when I was around 62 years old, my middle son Rick and his wife Ali decided that they'd put me on a Christian singles site. They wrote my profile and picked someone out for me. I wrote to him, but I never heard back. I was so beside myself, I got off the site.
Eventually, I met Ted
But every now and then, I'd log back in and browse. One night in March 2010, I looked and saw a man named Ted Gray. His username was "Flyer," and he'd written, "Farmer wants a wife." His wife had passed away the year before. I loved that his profile said he wanted to share past memories and make new ones.
I went to Rick and Ali, and my other sons, and they said, "Mum, go for it." So, I wrote Flyer a message on the site, and I didn't hear anything back. A week later, I plucked up the courage to write another message, and I realized that Ted had never received the original message — I'd never actually pressed send. I signed off, "PS: I love lavender," because I knew from his profile that he had a lavender farm.
The next day, on March 29, Ted wrote me a lovely invitation saying he was going to fly down from his home in Porepunkah to Melbourne, where I lived, and asked if he could take me to lunch. By that point, we still hadn't spoken on the phone yet, we had just been going back and forth with emails for a fortnight. I accepted his invitation, and we made plans to meet in person on April 14.
We had an unusual first date
When the big day arrived and I was waiting for him at Lilydale Airport, I was so nervous. I checked myself in the mirror about 10 times. I was wearing jeans with a white T-shirt and a jacket. Ted told me later that he had asked a friend who worked in a clothing shop what he should wear to take a lady out for lunch. She advised black jeans with a black shirt.
The first thing he said to me as he walked toward me was, "You're beautiful." We just smiled and looked at each other, and then he asked, "Do you want to come for a fly?" I walked over to the plane, and there was a bunch of flowers for me — lavender and roses.
I jumped into the plane, and strangely, I wasn't scared at all about the prospect of flying with someone I didn't really know. I felt completely safe with Ted. Ted was quite emotional — for him, it was a really big thing. We flew over Port Phillip Bay, then we went out to a winery for lunch. I have no memory of what we ate. We just talked and talked.
After he flew home, my phone went off with messages from my family. They were all joking that "the teenage daughter" had gone on a date.
Ted wrote me an email the next day saying he knew this was something special, and while it was lovely, it scared me because I didn't know how I felt yet. The night after receiving the email, I felt like all the excitement I had following the date turned into fear. Though it had been wonderful, I didn't know how I felt, or how to proceed. In 21 years, I had met no one, and suddenly I'd met this man, and I was frightened I might hurt him.
Our connection scared me, but it was real
I told him how I felt and asked him to slow down. He wrote me an email with the subject, "just a chat," and I felt like he was listening. We started again.
Because he was going overseas to New Guinea to do mission work for several weeks, he wanted me to see his farm before he left. On our second date, he flew me from Melbourne to Porepunkah.
Some of his friends were staying in cottages that he had built on his farm. One of them said to him, "Ted, your shirt's inside out." We all cracked up laughing. I hadn't even noticed the shirt. That was the moment I fell in love with him.
After that, he went off to New Guinea. It was so remote that I didn't hear from him for four and a half weeks.
When he returned to Australia, we met up and walked around a local park holding hands and stopping for the odd kiss. That week, he met my family and they all fell in love with him, too.
A few months later, Ted asked my sons' permission to marry me. We got engaged on July 17, 2010, and we were married in my church in Melbourne on October 2.
My grandson led me into the church, and then my sons walked me to the altar. We had a high tea after, and it was absolutely beautiful. For our honeymoon, we flew to Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, and we've had many adventures together since.
When Al died, I never believed I could love like that again, but our love is wonderful. I love Ted just like I loved Al, and that blows me away.
Some people never even get one great love story — I've had two. I feel incredibly blessed that that happened, and extremely humbled. It was worth waiting 21 years for Ted.