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These grandparents’ long-distance online romance is proof that you're never too old to find love.
The American couple recently released a book filled with 200 of the touching emails they exchanged during their courtship.
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When Roz Lewy’s daughter, Karen Argetsinger, a lawyer, invited her to a business lunch at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, with one of her clients, she didn’t know she'd be sparking a friendship between her mom and witty retired architect Ralph Insinger (87).
"It turned out to be a good lunch," Ralph tells Insider.com.
Roz (81), a retired English teacher from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was in town to spend time with her family but left Boston soon afterwards, and Ralph went home to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Not daunted by the 2 000km that lay between them, they began exchanging emails.
They found mutual intelligence and humour in their often amusing emails as they shared special as well as everyday moments and slowly got to know each other.
Roz, a widow and grandmother of four, says they'd discuss common interests such as literature, music and theatre.
In one email, Ralph wrote, “Your photo work is certainly excellent. I’m delighted by the images you captured to show me something of what you attended.” He went on to say, ”Furthermore, with this evidence that you were thinking of me you delighted me also.”
Ralph, who was also widowed, told Roz about his hobbies of gardening, cooking and painting, and about the time he spent with his grandchildren.
"Yes, but can you dance?" Roz teased.
In February 2019, Ralph flew to Florida to visit his new pal.
"It was such a warm experience that when I left, I realised there was more than just friendship there," he says.
Before long, their emails quickly took a more romantic turn as they began mailing each other poems and handwritten letters and exchanging up to three messages a day.
"I'd come home in the evening and the first thing I'd do was get out my computer," Ralph says. "I'd look at my inbox and see what Roz had written for the day."
Determined to pursue a new life together, the couple held a small commitment ceremony in September 2020 and divide their time between Massachusetts and Florida.
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"In this last beautiful chapter of our lives we know in our hearts that we're meant to be together, to blend our separate lives together, making us a couple who measure our living moments as our moments."
Now, almost four years since their first email, their book, Beyond Beyond: A Chance Encounter, an Online Courtship, and the Language of Love, was released last month.
Aware of how unusual their love story is, their intro reads, “Dear reader, we're faced with a dilemma. How do we write an introduction to experiences and developments that couldn't be anticipated or planned?”
But however it came to be, their story is inspiring people everywhere.
“Inspirational story that proves you're never too old to fall in love,” one reviewer wrote.
Sources: Amazon.com, Insider.com, Beyond Beyond
