Love Story

Joan and Joe Leotta

 

 

Joan and Joe Leotta on wedding day

Finding the Only Person I Enjoy Being with as Much as I Enjoy Being Alone

By Joan Leotta

When we first met, I was hopeful yet skittish about even talking to the handsome Italian American (Joe) who my friend, Diane brought to the house I shared with three other girls
our weekly young working people’s Bible study in Washington, DC.

After all, he seemed very close to, (maybe involved with) some of my friends.

And, in fact, that night, he did not even seem to notice me. If you ask him, he tells that our first meeting was after one of the first Bible Studies he attended when the group went out for pizza and I, (allergic to smoke, and hating dirty ashtrays) gathered up all of the dirty paper ashtrays.
He was a smoker at the time, so was startled by my reaction and a bit worried about getting to know me. However, a few weeks went by and one night, after the study as he saw me filling in my Daily Planner, he asked if there was room for him on the planner. I was speechless. He had not seemed to notice me. We did find time for coffee. And to work on a project together.

My roommates, friends talked about seeing him as being with the other girls, in our group, although I was always a part of the groups they spoke about.. until one December Monday, he called me at my office and asked me to lunch the following Wednesday.

I cleared my schedule for our lunch at a local downtown watering hole, business lunch place, the but remembering my mother’s long-ago advice about girlfriends and dating, I
did not mention the date to my roommates. I knew some of them liked him.

Then came Christmas. We were both going to be with our separate large Italian families—his in upstate New York, mine in Pittsburgh families so very alike!

My birthday followed soon after and he asked me out. The restaurant we both liked best was closed that Monday night, so we agreed on another, recommended by a friend of mine from work.

That evening was the first time he picked me up at the house I shared with the three other girls
from our group. My roommate opened the door, oh so surprised Joe was calling for me.
Soon after, we were so often in each other’s company, in fact so often that when we were apart it seemed something was missing. In March he went way for work, and we talked every night. He called me darling on one of those phone calls.

Not long after his return, he told me he loved me and two days later over chardonnay (hey it was the 70s!) in a little place near my house he asked me to marry him, and I said yes.

He drove the turnpike to ask my father for permission—and by October 22nd we were married.
Starting our own family came soon after. We welcomed a daughter and twenty months after that a son. Years of excitement, financial struggles that seemed large, but soon were managed, passed quickly.
 

 

Joan and Joe and their son, Joey, and daughter, Jenny

Then, when Joey, our son was 19, our world was shaken by a midnight phone call that our son had been hit by a car on campus (Virginia Tech).We careened down Route 81 and sat by his side for four days, praying, watching his friends fly and drive in from everywhere to say good bye. His death is something we both still grieve.

Our reliance on God, each of us finding refuge, grieving together, though in separate Bible verses, has helped us stay steady, loving, able to focus also on our beloved daughter, and each other in the midst of the sorrow of the loss.

We both sought strength, and God supplied it. Joe retired early. We transplanted to North Carolina from Virginia, to live a quieter life among the golf flags (for him), near the ocean and shore birds (for us both). I continued to write for newspapers, but slowly shifted to poetry, fiction, and personal essays.  

Just two years ago our daughter’s illness upended our lives once more. She’s well now, but we know we need to be closer to her, less of a drive. So now, we are packing again, trusting that even in this buyer’s market, even though more than 1,000 new homes are competing against us, God will find a buyer for us and at the right time. Are we still in love? Oh yes, more so than even at first, and we look forward to an eternity of togetherness.

 

 

Joan, Joe and Jenny Christmas 2023

When Do You Say I Love You to Your Date?

Even talking about I love you
is not recommended for first
or early dates.
However, recommended is
Not my strong point.
In Joe’s red Fiat Spider,
on a January night, the
ragtop barely held
In the engine’s warmth,
tires slipping on
roads still glistening
from a DC ice storm,
as we drove to the
fancy restaurant we
had both selected
for my birthday dinner,
on this our second or third date,
somehow the topic
“Have you ever said
I love you to someone”
managed, like the cool
night air to slip into the
car and dominate our conversation.
I, a hopeless romantic,
had to admit I had said the words.
He, watching the road
as he spoke, replied he had not
and would not until
he found the right woman,
the one he wanted to marry.
We pulled into a parking place.
He helped me out of the car,
over the icy walk, to the restaurant’s door.
Likely he attributed my shaking,
silence to the slippery walk.
However, my unsteadiness
was not the fault of footwear or slick cement.
Rather , his words made me
recall a talk with my Father,
 years before when I was twelve:
“The right man, my dear will
never say I love you, unless
he is ready to marry you.”
Hardly able to hear what Joe
was saying as we were led to
my Dad’s words echoed in my ears.
We stuck to safer topics
for the rest of the night,
though I admit I wondered
if I was sitting across from the
man I was truly meant to marry.
Turns out, my Dad was prescient.

That very April, Joe told me he loved me,
proposed, and Oct. 22 we will celebrate
our 47th year of marriage.