LOVE
Celebrating
The LW Weekly asked residents to submit stories of love in honor of Valentine’s Day.
Reunited with my first kiss after 50 years apart
At age 16, Elaine was the first girl I ever kissed on the fourth floor stairwell of our New York City project building. My eyeglasses literally fogged from the heat of that kiss and I was forever smitten.
It was like a line from a James Taylor song—“First kiss ever I took, like a page from a romance book, the skies opened and the earth shook.” At age 18, I went to West Point and was separated from my first love, and when I resigned my commission to be with her, alas she was with another prince charming. Heartbroken, I vowed to make her regret she made the wrong choice in life so I went onto medical school and became a pediatrician for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
However, I carried Elaine in my heart for 50 years through two marriages for each of us and never let go of the possibility that one day this New York City girl would be with me again. Finally, at age 67, we found each other again, and it was like we were 16 again. I had found my beshert, my destiny and we married four years ago at Wayfarer’s Chapel in Palos Verdes and moved to Seal Beach three years later. Our bodies have changed but the love we had never disappeared. I still see you as that sweet 16-year-old girl on that project stairwell when you kissed me. “It is written,” true love never dies, it survives no matter what obstacle is put in its way. I love you Elaine, always have, always will.
—Lawrence Ahr and Elaine Loconte, Mutual 12
My mom’s pushy friend insisted on playing matchmaker
Little did I know when my apartment wall phone rang that afternoon almost 50 years ago, that the conversation would change my life!
“Hello?” “Ellen, hello, dearie! This is Henrietta, a friend of your mother’s. When I was at my church’s ladies’ Bible study this morning, I was seated next to the nicest lady, and we got to talking about our families. Well, her son, Bob, just got out after serving four years in the Navy and is going to go to the same college as you! So I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if you were to call him and introduce yourself?!”
VALENTINE'S DAY, page 8 “Uh, well…” “You are such a friendly person, dearie, and he won’t know anybody on campus, so I told his mother to relay the message that you would be calling! I’m sure you don’t want to disappoint him, right?”
“Well, since you put it that way…” And that’s how it all started. I did call him because I just knew that if I didn’t, sweet, pushy Henrietta would keep pressing the matter until I did. We met later that week on campus at El Camino College in Torrance, California. But at the time I was seeing someone else and refused his immediate invitation for a date. After that initial meeting, we’d run into each other periodically between classes and one day, he asked how Dave was.
“Oh, we broke up.” “Oh, really! Are you busy tonight?”
A year later, we were married on Aug. 13, 1977. Through 50 years together, three wonderful daughters, and seven precious grandchildren, God has provided strength and direction to weather financial concerns, sicknesses, surgeries, homes bought and sold and all the usual ups and downs of marriage. I still love Bob’s jokes, his generosity, his commitment to God, his playfulness, his wisdom, his servant’s heart.
As I look back on all those years ago, I am grateful for those two old ladies—some might call them busy bodies or nosy—but I call them caring, loving women who knew that it’s practically impossible to accidentally meet someone who just turns out to be your perfect soulmate. Once in a while, a little suggestion, a little nudge in the right direction, and two young people who had open hearts to God’s mysterious plan, and a beautiful, full life is the result.
—Ellen Kabelitz, Mutual 5
I proposed the first day we met. Sometimes you just know.
In 1970s Korea, Valentine’s Day was unknown to me. I was a bachelor and a flight attendant, weary from over 40 failed matchmaking attempts arranged by my anxious grandmother. But I didn’t know that my destiny awaited at LAX.
As I descended the airport stairs one afternoon, Pastor Kim, who I hadn’t seen in five years, suddenly called my name. “Are you married?” “Not yet sir!” He asked me to visit him at 3 p.m. the next day. Then, he introduced me to a young lady in his church study. For me, it was instant certainty—God’s answer to my prayers. I proposed on the very first day.
She, however, was terrified by this bold stranger who lived across the ocean. She avoided me, but I staked my life on this love. I visited whenever I landed in Los Angeles and sent weekly letters that went unanswered.
Five months later, a simple card arrived. Confused by its plain message, I showed it to a friend in the U.S. He cheered, “It’s a Valentine’s card! You’ve finally won her heart!” I had no idea what a “Valentine” was, but his explanation gave me hope.
That card broke the ice. We married that September in Korea amid 500 guests. I eventually immigrated to the U.S., and we shared 46 blissful years, blessed with two sons and three grandsons.
My beloved wife went to be with the Lord last March. This year marks my first Valentine’s Day without her—a day I now understand all too well, forever cherishing the card that started our forever.
—James Ha, Mutual 15
We carpooled to church together, then we fell in love.
Leslie: In 2005, at the age of 35, I moved to Leisure World to be the caregiver for my mother. During the next 17 years, I also became a caregiver for numerous other residents of LW. Other than attending the First Christian Church, I did not participate in any of the many activities offered at LW. That changed in late 2021.
Tony: After my labradoodle guide dog, Sam, and I moved to Leisure World in 2011, I met and married Ann. For months after her death in July 2021, I did not venture far from home. When Leslie, a casual acquaintance from the First Christian Church, offered to drive me to Bible study, I declined. After a week of thinking about it, I called her back and accepted her offer. This was a life-changing decision for me.
Our rides to and from church lead into lunches, which lead to listening to the big band music of the Velvetones, then attending Abilene’s New Year’s Eve party. It was while dancing to the dulcet tones of Terry Otte crooning “Neon Moon,” that we realized that our feelings had moved from friendship to love. It was a perfect end to 2021 and gave us warm thoughts of the wonderful possibilities for 2022.
It was in the early part of that year when Leslie’s mom started needing more intensive care and she moved into an assisted living residence. We decided that since we loved each other and were spending most of the time together, rather than maintain two places in LW, we would get married sooner and move in together— which we did in April 2022. We find that each day has been a gift of happiness, and we feel very blessed.
—Tony and Leslie Davis, Mutual 9 She refused a date with me because she thought I was a “conceited playboy.”
We’re celebrating our 56th anniversary in April.
Maria and I met at a school bus stop on Bloomfield Street and Howard Avenue in Los Alamitos, going to Western High School in 1965—10th grade, who knew? I asked her to go steady with me a couple years later. “No,” she said, “You’re a conceited playboy.” Wow! I was persistent though, and finally she agreed to a date but only if her sister Anita and her cousin came with us. Off we went cruising down Whittier Boulevard, just about every weekend.
We got married April 26, 1970. While I was in the Army, I toured Vietnam, came home and soon after our two sons, Mario (1971, rest in peace) and Abby (1972) were born, followed by our daughter Andrea (1977). We had the opportunity to raise them in the beautiful city of Cypress for 32 years.
We are so very blessed with 10 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. By the amazing grace of God, we will celebrate our 56th anniversary in April. Love and happiness is what we’ve felt for each other through out our enduring journey. Our lives have been filled with many blessings, adventures, trials and hardships, to say the least.
Our faith in the power of prayer of our family and friends fills us with gratitude of His miracles and mercies. Our hopes are that all find God in their lives and someone who lives, loves and laughs with you like us.
—Al and María Gómez, Mutual 2 I went to the mechanic to get my car repaired. I ended up with a husband who gave me 30 years of love and laughter.
My hair was in pin curls and I had on gym shoes with my business suit. I asked for the daytime manager of a car repair shop I’d never been to. While wagging my finger at him I said: “I work three jobs, and I’m a single mom. I need my car. No business owner wants his manager to turn away business. I did some work for someone I knew from law school who owned a car dealership and I couldn’t take money so they worked on my car from the hood ornament to the trunk key. So the pulling I feel when I drive must be a small job.”
He grabbed my wagging finger and said, “I’m never letting go of you.” A coworker had agreed to drive me to work. I told her the manager and I had laughed and I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed like that. Later, she drove me to pick up my car. The invoice had no amount owed. (A plug that holds the engine was loose, it said, and he had written “Cocktails?”) We were married about three months later and had 30 years of love, laughter and family life. Then, one day, he abruptly died, and here I am in Leisure World.
One measure of loss says that the grief you feel is in equal measure to the amount of your last delight.
—Marla Hamblin, Mutual 15
Love thy neighbor.
The Leisure World Cares Fund charity has provided a way for love of community to become real. In just four months, over 80 residents have expressed their love of the many other residents who are struggling to meet their Leisure World housing costs.
The donor’s love is unconditional. In most cases they never met the neighbors they are helping yet they make a real difference in their lives. With the funding provided to those struggling to survive comes the ability for them to better plan their lives, have more consistency in their lives and have hope for the future. Those outcomes are some of the tangible outcomes of loving your neighbor and putting that into practice. Best of all, anyone who can afford it can join the love in of community by supporting the Leisure World Cares Fund.
—Nick Massetti, Mutual 17
Friendship is its own kind of love.
Happy Valentine’s Day to all my friends in the LW Bike Group and my table tennis buddies. So grateful for all the friendships and love!
—Mary Ellen Fuller, Mutual 2
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Once in a while, a little suggestion, a little nudge in the right direction, and two young people who had hearts open to God's mysterious plan-and a beautiful, full life is the result.
—Ellen Kabelitz, Mutual 5
Right: Ellen and Bob Kabelitz were set up by a pushy friend of Ellen's mother. Now, 50 years later, they have a clan of grandchildren.
Then and now: Lawrence Ahr and Elaine Loconte of Mutual 12 shared their fi rst kiss in a New York City project building.
Al and María Gómez of Mutual 2 met in ninth grade while attending Western High School in Anaheim.
James Ha proposed to his wife onthe first day they met. He knew "withinstant certainty” that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
