Corona Daily 107: Love Stories Never End

New Jersey was under a strict lockdown. Bill lived on the second floor. Iris lived a floor above him. They started sneaking into each other’s apartments. Sometimes Bill would climb a floor. Or Iris came down to his apartment. They knew visiting someone in another house was prohibited. But they took the risk any way.

Finally, one day, the security guard caught Bill on the staircase. This is not on. Everyone on the floor knows what is going on. You can either live apart or live together, you make up your mind now, or I will have to report you, the guard said.

An upset Bill went back to his apartment and called Iris over the phone. He narrated the encounter with the security guard. They talked for a while. Both knew there was only one solution. Iris packed her suitcase, took her toothbrush and moved into Bill’s apartment.

This week, they completed a year of living together.

“Their story is the rose that grew through the pavement during a difficult time” Keith Grady, the executive director of their apartment complex said. “Bill and Iris have no inhibitions, and they are always up for fun.”

*****

In July this year, Bill Biega will turn 99. Iris Ivers is a younger 91. Iris had become a widow in 2001, and had moved to the Applewood retirement community a few years earlier. Bill lost his wife in 2019 after 75 years of marriage. That was when he moved to Applewood. The two had been part of a bridge playing group earlier, but got to know each other better only at Applewood.

They found they shared a love for reading, walking, concerts and enjoying a cocktail before dinner. Iris said she found Bill to be a demonstrative, warm and loving person. And he made great Bloody Marys. Bill said he was captivated by her gorgeous smile and young attitude.

He felt like a college guy sneaking into the women’s dorm, Bill said with a laugh.

*****

Iris grew up in New York’s Schenectady, close to Albany. She graduated from Cornell University and moved with her family to New York City. She enjoyed a 25-year career with a magazine, retiring as the deputy copy chief editor.

Bill grew up in Poland. He was one of the last survivors of the 1944 Warsaw uprising, in which the Poles tried to drive out the Nazis. Bill was one of the leaders of the Polish underground resistance and spent six months in a German hospital camp after being wounded. He had a career as an engineer and global sales executive after moving to the USA.

“I survived all of that, had a very successful life, and can still walk and swim a few months before I’ll turn 99.” Bill said. “I know that I’m an extremely lucky man.”

That lucky streak continued with finding Iris in this late chapter of his life. Now they are both fully vaccinated, the lockdown is over; Bill has convinced Iris to join him in the pool for regular swims.

*****

Will the two tie the knot; the curious journalist asked the inevitable question.

The two shook their heads.

“When you’ve lived as long as we have, there’s no reason to get married,” Bill said. “After all we do live in the twenty-first century”.

Iris said they wouldn’t like Bill’s five children (most of them in their seventies), and her two children go through the stress of a “late-late-late-in-life” wedding of their parents. “What would be the point in that?”She said. “We are enjoying things as they are.”

“It’s never too late to have a love life.” Bill added.

*****

Ravi