89-year-olds wed after sparks fly at school reunion
Web Posted: 08/12/2007 12:16 AM CDT
Karisa King
Express-News
It's hard to say exactly when romance sparked. When Roberta Mahan and August Offer first met two years ago at a hotel luncheon, they sat at the same table, barely talking. Neither of them had been looking for someone.
But at some point during the meal, they started to chat.
"I really don't know what hit us," Mahan says. "I guess we just clicked."
"We got older and woke up," Offer adds.
Older, yes. The luncheon that brought them together was Brackenridge High School's 70-year reunion.
On Saturday, in the soft light of a tall stained-glass window at Trinity Baptist Church, the radiant couple stood side by side and exchanged wedding vows. The bride wore a lacy white gown, her hair piled high and crowned with a sparkling rhinestone tiara. The groom stood beside her looking smart in a black tuxedo with a French cut. Both are 89 years old.
In a world obsessed with young love, or love among the famous and the rich, here is an everyday story of exceptional love, found not in life's prime but toward the end of two lives fully lived.
"You are a testimony of hope for all of us," the Rev. Buckner Fanning told the couple in front of crowd of about 200 friends and family members.
Like typical newlyweds, they like to marvel at the forces that united them.
Mahan had lived alone for 25 years since her husband died. After retiring as a journalism teacher at Sam Houston High School, she made a point of staying socially connected. She kept up with old students, joined a dinner club and worked out with a group of women three times a week. She dated frequently, but never seriously.Offer, who retired from Missouri Pacific Railroad and lost his wife in 2004, kept up less with high school pals than his group of World War II veteran friends. But he decided — at the last minute — to attend that fateful reunion lunch. Although the group of original graduates had thinned over the years, the gatherings were open to family members and usually drew big turnouts. By the time he called, reservations were closed.
"They almost didn't let me in," Offer says. "It was divine intervention."
Sitting one chair away from him, Mahan didn't pay much attention to Offer until she heard him mention that he hated eating meals alone. She picked up on it and invited him to her dinner group. When they started talking, they discovered that they had danced together in high school.
He suggested they should get together to reminisce about old times. She invited him to her house that afternoon.
"We talked for two hours, but he left very early, and I was surprised by that," Mahan says.
That was on a Saturday. Sunday came and went without a phone call. Finally, at 4 p.m. Monday, he called. He was direct. "What time should I pick you up?" Offer asked.
"That changed everything," Mahan says. "We've been doing things together ever since."
The couple seems giddy. Every morning, they coordinate their outfits to match. Offer makes coffee for her while she reads the newspaper to him. Driving in the car, they always hold hands. They linger over breakfasts at a neighborhood diner, just the two of them talking, sometimes stopping only when they notice the lunch crowd has arrived. And in one of the greatest benchmarks of his affection, Offer has even taken to watching Mahan's soap opera.
"We're just in love and we don't know how to live without it," he says.
So far, they've taken cruises to Alaska, Hawaii and the Caribbean Islands, and they've visited Phoenix, Reno and Washington. They attribute their longevity to staying active. On Monday, Mahan will turn 90.
"I tell people that I'm marrying an older woman," he says.
The only spot of trouble came a few weeks ago when Offer felt chest pains and feared a possible heart attack. Instead, doctors discovered it was his gallbladder and removed it. His hospital recovery took two weeks, but he has regained his strength.
Other than that, his eyesight gives him a little trouble, and it's hard to raise his right arm.
Doctors have confirmed, though, that his heart is working just fine.
89-year-olds wed after sparks fly at school reunion
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