26 Years Without ‘My Norm’

by Lori Dwyer on March 1, 2010 · 6 comments

Heya,

I entered this photo in the BellyBelly photography competition this month. the theme this month was ‘Love’, and I wanted to do something a bit different. (and I won! I won! I won, I won, I won!!).
The sweetest love story I’ve ever heard is really a very simple one. Boy- that’s Norm, my grandfather, meets girl- that’s Shirl, my gran; way back in the late 1940′s. Boy courts girl in a horse and sulky when cars were well and truly the fashion; because he owns a horse, but not a car, and he’s a practical sorta fella that way. Boy and girl get married at the respective ages of 20 and 19.

They have their ups and their downs. Build a house, buy a car, have two kids and an angel baby in between. At the age of 50, my grandfather, who had never smoked and rarely drank, was fit and active, was diagnosed with cancer. He passed away when I was two years old.
My gran had never had anyone else before him, and has never had one after. She never will. Norm was her man, her one and only. She wears a photos of Norm and herself in a locket around her neck, every day, everywhere she goes.

A year or so ago, I was a guest speaker at a women’s social group my gran attends, and I stayed for the discussion afterward. The topic was married couples sleeping in separate beds. Most of the women were happy to confess that they regularly or occasionally slept in separate beds, or rooms, from their husbands. My lovely gran spoke up to say, “It’s been 26 years without my Norm (she always calls him that- “my Norm”, no one else’s)… I’d give anything to spend just one more night sleeping next to him”.

Quite simply… that’s love.