"She was a war bride..."

So, a little explanation before i start this epic, epic love story.
I got a job with a home health agency, and I am currently workin as a hospice CNA. i love this job more than anything else in the whole world. My current patient i am working with has alzheimers, but her husband is sharp as a tack. they are 93 and have been married for 68 years.

I was in the dining room with my patient and her husband having a little dinner with them, when somehow the subject of worldwar two came up. For the next 40 minutes, i listened to the best love story i'd ever heard. my jaw seriously was dropped the majority of dinner. (for patients confidentiality, i'll change the names to Ron and Bev)

Ron began by telling me how him and Bev had met. He heard about a college frat reuinion, and made a note to travel to ohio to see some old friends. He told me all the details about the get together...the church, the basement, the decorations. He told me then that right when he arrived, he had seen the prettiest girl from across the room. She was wearing a red dress and Ron just absolutely was taken. He said he marched himself right up to her and asked her out right then and there, and they immediately started dating eachother. The funny thing was.. was he said that he didn't know that her big brother was his professor. He said, "Luckily...we were on good terms..." because he was so taken with Bev. They dated for a year when Ron got called into the Navy. He went to Harvard to take some training courses, and also Cambridge University, while Bev lived with her parents. One weekend Bev and her parents drove down to Norfolk to visit Ron while he was stationed at training in Virginia. He told me in detail about their sunday...the church they went to was the actualy church that General McCarthur went to. They went out to dinner, then Ron took them over to his ship he was to be stationed on in the future for a little tour. Ron told me that as he was walking up the dock, he saluted his fellow shipmate, and before anything else his shipmate said, without a salute, he said, "Pearl Harbor was attacked today."
Ron looked at me then and said, "Those are the days you don't forget." He told me then that If he was to get called on Active duty they would get married, but if he was immediately deployed they would wait till he got home from the war. Ron did get called to immediately deploy, and he said him and Bev got married anyway. "Yup, She was a war bride. I got the orders on Monday, we got married Wednesday, and I was out of there by that next Monday."
Bev smiled at Ron.
I asked Bev if she was scared, and she said, "Well i wasnt crazy! of course i was!"

I seriously didn't know what to say when he continued, "I survived the sinking of my ship." He told me about how he was a Captain and was in charge of alot of the decoding of messages on board. One afternoon, they were out on deck and saw a japanese fleet of planes flying over them. the last plane in the formation started diving at their boat, but their ships gunman shot the plane down before the pilot could do much. the plane crashed into the navy boat, and started a fire. Ron got orders to sink all the coding equipment before he was to evacuate the sinking ship, so for fifteen minutes he obeyed his orders while his ship was on fire, so the Japanese could not get any inside information.
"I saw my shipmates strewn out across the water." He finished up and told me how the rescue boat came and retreived some of the men, and he was one of them.

And there they were, 68 years later, holding hands at the dinner table and smiling at each other like they were 25. Ron looks at Bev like she is the most precious thing in the world. and he tells her that she is, everynight before bed. And Bev tells him that she loves him more and more everyday. Their story of how Ron survived while Bev was anxiously awaiting the arrival of her sweetheart, warms my heart. :) So... true love does exist.

I love my job.