True love really does exist

My parents Pat and John Weber will be married 60 years this July 8, and have been together since they were teenagers. They both attended the same high school and had met at 16 years old through Pat’s brother Artie because John had become best friends with Artie. When Artie introduced John to Pat, it was love at first sight.

My dad had dropped out of school and enlisted in the U.S. Navy, leaving the love of his life behind. John was really torturing himself being away from Pat and snuck out of the Navy several times, once during a Christmas family get-together with Pat’s family, then John’s father showed up with the military police and John was locked up each time in the brig, then John finally got a discharge and went home to the love of his life.

When my parents were 19-year-old teenagers, my mom got pregnant with me, and when my grandparents got the news they rushed them to get married at a church wedding within a few days. Most of the family and friends said their marriage would not last; well they really proved everyone wrong, and are truly blessed with a loving, caring, 59 years of devotion. Everyone that knows my parents or sees them can tell they are truly in love and can’t be without one another.

My mom has a big box of cards my dad handmade with loving poems and drawings for every occasion for over 60 years and each one is different and always free from his heart. One year before we moved to Rio Rancho back around 1975 while we lived in New York we had a huge snow storm and it happened to be Valentine’s Day. Well my dad couldn’t get to a store to buy my mom a Valentine’s gift or flowers, so my dad went out in the front yard and made this really huge Valentine heart, then he took red food coloring and dyed the snow red, and that was my mom’s Valentine made from Dad’s heart. My dad has always gone out of his way to show and prove his true love, even if it’s free.

Both my parents will be 80 this summer and my mom’s birthday is Aug. 18 and my dad’s is Sept. 1, so my dad always brags to everyone for over 60 years that he is married to an older woman. There’s even more to tell on my parents’ love story. My parents are definitely the true example of the meaning of true love, especially one that you hardly ever see anymore and I just wanted people to see true love does really exist.