What are the chances of a woman in her 80s finding a man to share her life — not just a companion, as pleasant as that would be, but real physical, mental and emotional love? Throughout the 16 years after my last husband died, I asked myself that question a thousand times. I knew the grim statistics. Harvard Health Publishing says that by age 85, 67% of the American population is female. Adding to the skewed odds, so few of the male population left standing are interested in women over a certain age. The likely ones, the men who have had good love relationships and desire another, do not seem to remain alone for more than a few months, if that long. A friend suggested to me that the best chance for a woman in her 70s or 80s to appeal to a good man would be through a meaningful friendship with a couple before his wife passes away. It never occurred to me that such a situation would ever happen to me.
In the summer of 2017, I went once a week to visit my lovely, long-time, friend Jen, who was enrolled in hospice with terminal pulmonary fibrosis. From our first marriages, we had shared so much in common. We raised our kids together throughout our many summer vacations in Maine. She was an accomplished artist. I owned an art gallery in New York. In mid-life, we had both gone through a divorce from our first husbands.
