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Partners
It’s a cool autumn evening, the perfect time for a romantic stroll in the twilight – and the couple walking hand in hand down the street are clearly crazy about each other.
Every now and then the man puts an arm around his sweetheart and she laughs at his jokes. They look carefree and hopelessly in love.
But something about this pair makes passersby in the Free State town of Hennenman do a double-take.
Motorists’ heads turn; pedestrians whisper to each other.
Look a little more closely and you understand why: there’s more than 40 years age difference between them and they look more like grandmother and grandson than husband and wife.
But Ria (71) and JP Moritz (30) couldn’t care less what other people say or think.
To them it’s the here and now that’s important. “We have nothing to hide. People can talk if they want to – our love is genuine.
And it’s blind to age,” Ria says, squeezing JP’s hand. “When we went to home affairs to get our marriage certificate the attendant’s eyes nearly popped out of her head,” she adds. “I asked her, ‘What’s wrong? Are you jealous? Do you also want a piece? Well, you can’t – he’s mine!’”
This is how they react these days when people stare or make remarks, Ria says. “The other day a man nearly broke his neck looking at us. When I pulled JP closer and kissed him the guy didn’t know what to do with himself.”
When JP was born, Ria was a 40-yearold married mom of four. Today he’s in the prime of his life, working on a farm outside town, while Ria is a housewife and proud great-grandmother.
Yet the couple, who had a civil wedding 20 months ago, are as smitten as teenagers. “I always knew I’d marry an older woman. My mom thought so too,” JP tells us as we chat in the lounge of their home, the walls decorated with porcelain plates and embroidery.
There are also wedding photos along with pictures of Ria’s kids, grandchildren and greatgrandchild. JP laughs when we ask him what it was like to become an instant stepdad, granddad and greatgranddad.
“I don’t think of myself that way. Ria’s children and I get along well. I’m more of a brother than a father to them.”
Well, more of a little brother actually – Ria’s youngest daughter is 38, a full eight years older than her mom’s new husband. But this isn’t an issue for anyone in the family, Ria insists.
“If there’s something in their homes that needs fixing, JP is the first person they call,” she says. “Everyone’s mad about him.”
It was JP who initiated contact with Ria two years ago. “I sent her a friend request on Facebook,” he recalls. “A girlfriend didn’t feature on his Facebook page, so I sent him a message asking why a goodlooking young guy like him didn’t have someone special in his life,” Ria says. “I was just joking but after that we started chatting.”
“We just clicked,” JP says. Ria was instantly drawn to JP’s creativity. “He writes beautiful poems. I used to read them on his Facebook page and encouraged him to write more.”
It wasn’t long before they’d exchanged phone numbers and began chatting on WhatsApp. And two short weeks later Ria made her move.
“I invited him to go with me to Parys for the weekend to relax at the Vaal River.” At the time JP was living in Welverdiend, Gauteng, where he worked as a drill operator.
“The weekend was great,” Ria says. “We braaied and talked about everything and everybody.” Love blossomed but as things got serious Ria asked JP to think carefully about whether he’d be able to cope being in a relationship with a woman who was 70plus.
“I told him he didn’t know what he was letting himself in for. He’ll never have hildren with me, for starters. Our time is limited. He’ll be alive long after I’ve gone to heaven. But he wouldn’t listen – he wanted me.”
She glances over at JP, then giggles like a schoolgirl. “I knew what I was getting involved in,” JP says. “I wanted to be with her. I didn’t care about children.”
Soon afterwards he moved in with Ria in Hennenman.
“We’d been on our own. Now we completed each other,” JP says.
Ria hadn’t expected to find love again after her husband, Ben, died of lung cancer five years ago at age 78.
“I thought I’d be alone in my old age, but then suddenly here was this wonderful, loving man in my life.”
Some people think JP is after her money, Ria continues. “But he knows there’s nothing. I’m no rich old lady who’ll leave him a mountain of cash.”
Their relationship is about mutual respect, she says.
“We don’t care what others say or think – all that’s important is that we’re happy. “Ours is like any marriage with its ups and downs. When I’m cross with him I shout at him,” she says, stroking her husband’s leg.
“When he’s cross with me he blows up like a puffer fish and goes outside to cool off.”
Like any couple at the start of a relationship, meeting each other’s families was a big deal – but in their case it went off without a hitch.
JP introduced Ria first to his brother in Welverdiend and later to his parents, who live in Springbok in the Northern Cape. “They accepted her immediately. Nobody thought it was odd. My parents said I must do what makes me happy, and if she makes me happy they wouldn’t stand in my way.”
Ria’s children also had no objections when she unveiled her new partner. “I brought my children up the right way. They accepted JP with open arms.”
For now they’re settling down to life as man and wife but they don’t spend their days cloistered at home like an old married couple.
“We go to the movies or drive to Pretoria for the day. Sometimes if we’re feeling lazy we’ll stay home and play cards or board games all day long,” JP says.
And yes, people do ask them about sex, Ria says with a sigh.
“I tell them I may be old but I’m not dead yet. Of course we have sex!”
Ria takes JP’s hand tenderly. On their ring fingers each sports a tattoo instead of a wedding band. On his hand is etched the letter R, on hers the letter J.
“One thing’s for sure,” Ria says, “I’ll love him till the day I die.”
