My Grandparents were just teenagers when they first met. My Grandma's family owned a convenience store on Essex Street and after school my Grandma would work the front counter. One day my great-grandma needed help bringing in the latest shipment of goods, so she recruited the teenage boy who lived down the street.
My Grandpa was quite handsome, and he knew it too. He had dark olive skin, a sharp jaw, strong masculine features. He had those old-school Marlon Brando looks you don't really see in faces anymore. He grew even more handsome as he got older because he always looked like a little man, even in the black and whites of him as a toddler. He grew into his features, and was built sturdy from years of working construction. On top of that he had a hot-tempered, Sicilian charm. He was a "man's man," so it didn't surprise me that at seventeen he took one look at the cute blonde behind the counter, walked right over and said, "You have the most beautiful lips I've ever seen."
My Grandma, forever the quiet and serious one, suddenly became shy. She ran out back and pretended to go restock something. But my great-grandma coaxed her back out to go do her damn job and the rest is, well, history.
I don't think they knew what they were getting into when they got married. I knew they were young- he was eighteen, she was sixteen. But I only learned a few years ago why it was rushed. She dropped out of school and eight months later, my aunt was born. The wedding wasn't extravagant- they actually got married in an alleyway outside a church. Because she was Protestant, the Catholic Church refused to recognize their wedding. So they made do and tied the knot before anyone realized she was pregnant.
My Grandpa was quite handsome, and he knew it too. He had dark olive skin, a sharp jaw, strong masculine features. He had those old-school Marlon Brando looks you don't really see in faces anymore. He grew even more handsome as he got older because he always looked like a little man, even in the black and whites of him as a toddler. He grew into his features, and was built sturdy from years of working construction. On top of that he had a hot-tempered, Sicilian charm. He was a "man's man," so it didn't surprise me that at seventeen he took one look at the cute blonde behind the counter, walked right over and said, "You have the most beautiful lips I've ever seen."
My Grandma, forever the quiet and serious one, suddenly became shy. She ran out back and pretended to go restock something. But my great-grandma coaxed her back out to go do her damn job and the rest is, well, history.
I don't think they knew what they were getting into when they got married. I knew they were young- he was eighteen, she was sixteen. But I only learned a few years ago why it was rushed. She dropped out of school and eight months later, my aunt was born. The wedding wasn't extravagant- they actually got married in an alleyway outside a church. Because she was Protestant, the Catholic Church refused to recognize their wedding. So they made do and tied the knot before anyone realized she was pregnant.
Before they knew it, they were husband and wife. "We didn't have a honeymoon," my Grandma once told me, "but I like to think of our lives together as one big honeymoon."
They're in their eighties now, and my Grandpa has long lost the rugged handsomeness of his youth. His charm is still there, though in inappropriate ways. He flirts with women and has made passes at my mom the past few times she's visited and it makes her feel uncomfortable. My Grandma is slowly starting to say the word out loud: Alzheimer's. He's forgetting more and more each day and I can't imagine how much that must break her heart.
But today, there's comfort in the fact that he still remembers her as his wife, his love. Sometimes they'll be sitting at the table or on the couch and he'll look at her and smile and say, "Do you realize how many years we've been together?" She'll smile and answer back and just for a second, his eyes light up and they remember the person they saw on the other side of the convenience store counter, sixty-seven years ago.
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