A Little Lesson in Romance
My husband and I, along with my 87-year-old mother-in-law, were picking up Tom, her 92-year-old boyfriend, from the ferry. In preparation to see her “friend,” as she calls him, she applied blush and lip gloss. My husband, half amused, half annoyed that the car suddenly smelled like Sephora, asked, “Are you doing all this for Tom?” “Yes,” she said and then added with the defiance of a 16-year-old teaching her parents a lesson, “I guess we’re not an old married couple.” My husband of 38 years and I locked eyes and then laughed. A gentle reminder that romance requires effort. — Helene Rosenthal
Like Happy Potato Chips
My father was a strict, typical first-generation Korean man. Few words of sentiment, no hugs, maybe a tousle of the top of my head. But he loved watching martial arts movies, crooning old tunes and occasionally playing games with my kid sister and me — Connect 4, hide-and-seek. On weekend drives, he weaved the car in a squiggle, making us toss back and forth like potato chips in a bag. When we giggled, he smiled at us through the rearview mirror. I play the same games with my children and think, He would have been a wonderful grandpa. — Jung Lee
To All the Saints
All Saints’ Day in besieged Sarajevo was sunny and glorious. No shelling. My father died a few days later, the only fatality in a car crash. “Funerals are dangerous, so you won’t be going,” my mother said. “Someone must survive.” My then boyfriend went, unwavering eyes grayer than the broken sky above. At Lav Cemetery, he buried my father just as he had helped bury six other members of my family that year. We changed countries and languages. Decades passed. Let it be known to the saints and all: Our love is why we did so much more than survive. — Dalila Dragnic-Cindric
The Vows We Kept
The week Alex left, I called my ex-husband every day, crying into the phone. He texted: “Are you eating?” Then: “Picking you up at 7.” He let me cry into our sushi dinner, never promising it would be OK. The next table probably thought we were breaking up. It was a kindness I never expected: the man I used to be married to, consoling me over the woman I’d been sure I’d marry next. On our wedding day 14 years before, we vowed to love each other as we grew and changed. We had no idea. — Sarah Bloom
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