TRUE LOVE
Amid strict protocols, their romance bloomed
When I left school in California to return to Mexico in 1956, I was 21 and went to work in my father’s fishing cannery. I swore to all my relatives and friends at the time that I would remain a bachelor until I was 30.
Then one day, I spotted Mary, 19, at a traditional Mexican afternoon dance in Ensenada. She was beautiful, poised and slim, with a long brown ponytail. To say I was smitten would be an understatement. But she was with a male partner, so I could not interfere. Proper social protocol in Mexico in the
1950s demanded formality. I soon learned that Mary was working as a teller in a bank, Banco Mexicano de Occidente. Oddly enough, I thought I had seen her at a different bank. The mystery was solved when I found out Mary had a twin sister, Teresa, who worked at the other bank.
During this time, another dilemma confronted me: I couldn’t just walk up to Mary and ask for a date, as that was considered too forward. So I persuaded a mutual acquaintance to introduce us. From that moment on, I courted Mary, but always with a chaperone—her twin, Teresa—present.
Three weeks after we met, I swallowed my sworn statement about bachelorhood and proposed. Because Mary’s father had died in a plane crash, my parents formally asked her mother for her hand.
We were married in Ensenada in 1958. Five years later, in 1963, we moved to San Diego. We had two children and eventually five grandchildren. Mary worked as a supervisor at a savings and loan association, and I worked for the California state government until 1998, when I retired.
One summer day the following year, Mary was diagnosed with an incurable immune disorder. The doctor gave her at most two years, and I became her caregiver. She was a trouper and fought her illness with everything she had until she died three years later, on Aug. 18, 2002.
Is it possible that love continues to grow more with time? It did for Mary and me.
Does love end when one’s soul mate dies? After 44 years together, we were inseparable. A plaque I gave Mary many years ago sums up our life together: We are one love forever.