Carolaine and Richard's love story is a bittersweet story of soulmates found and then lost too soon. Carolaine feels thankful for the three years God gave her and Richard. "I feel that love transcends Heaven and earth, and I treasure each moment of our marriage. I feel so blessed. Because of CatholicMatch, I was loved by the love of my life!"
It all happened so fast...
Widowed four years, Carolaine, from Pennsylvania, decided to try CatholicMatch after noticing it on the back of her bulletin. Several months later, she saw Richard's profile in her matches. Like her, Richard was a widow looking for someone to share his life until "death do us part." Carolaine, 64, read that Richard lived in Montana, attended daily Mass, was a member of the Knights of Columbus, and abided by all of the tenants of the Faith. He also liked to travel and cook.
Carolaine also noticed Richard's height— 6'1." She really liked tall men! However, she had no idea what Richard looked like because he didn't have any good profile photos. Still, she says something clicked inside of her. Carolaine shares, "I felt smitten!"
However, Carolaine didn't make the first move, considering herself an old-fashioned girl. She went to bed, praying that Richard would send her a message.
Richard, from Montana, was a lonely widower.
Every morning Richard went to daily Mass, and he often spoke to his pastor, telling him how lonely he felt. He revealed to his parish priest, 'I pray at daily Mass I will meet a nice, Catholic lady." His priest recommended that Richard join CatholicMatch. Richard signed up immediately.
Looking at his matches, Richard noticed that Carolaine had clicked on his profile more than once. Interested, he sent Carolaine a flower bouquet emoji.
Then, he sent her real flowers!
On Memorial Day 2011, when Carolaine woke in the morning, to her delight, she saw Richard in Montana had messaged her! She wrote back thanking him for contacting her. They exchanged a few messages that the first day of communicating, and then Richard explained that he preferred to speak on the phone.
When Carolaine saw his phone number, she couldn't wait to call him. "I ran over two dogs, two parakeets, to get to the phone, dial his number, and thrilled to the sweet resonance of his deep, 'Hello," she says.
They liked the sound of each other's voices.
Carolaine says that Richard liked her voice as much as she liked his. "Believe me, he married the voice," she laughs. "It didn't matter what I looked like."
The two spoke on the phone for several hours. They talked so long that Richard's daughter became worried when her dad didn't answer his phone. She asked her dad's neighbor to check on him. The neighbor came over and told him, "Your daughter is worried about you." Richard responded, "I think I found myself a wife."
Richard sent her a good photo of himself, but to Carolaine, his looks didn't matter. She had already fallen in love.
On their first conversation, she told him that she loved him. And that day Richard sent her real flowers expressing his love!
"Give me some time to lose weight!"
Richard wanted to meet Carolaine, but she tried to put him off. She asked him to give her some time to lose some weight. He told her, "No, let's get together soon. Life's too short."
On July 4th, 2011, Richard took two planes from Montana to meet Carolaine in Pennsylvania. At the airport, the two embraced passionately. Carolaine calls their first meeting "magic."
In Richard's pocket was a promise ring for Carolaine. "We both knew that we had to be together," she says.
When Richard returned home, he and Carolaine would talk up to dozen times a day, and they prayed the Rosary together. "We couldn't thank God enough for bringing us together," she says.
Two years of bliss!
Three months after meeting, on October 8th, 2011, Carolaine walked down the aisle wearing purple. She confides that if she could do it over, she'd wear white and even a veil. They were married at her childhood parish just outside of Pittsburg.
"At noon, when the hands of the clock are both pointed to Heaven, and after a reception dinner, Richard, the two dogs, and two parakeets and I honeymooned across the country. Then he drove me to our new home, forty miles from the Canadian border," she shares.
Their last day together...
For over two years, the two soulmates lived a happy life together. They were inseparable. Carolaine would even go to work with Richard, who worked as an insurance agent.
"Each day felt like a gift to us," she shares.
The couple was traveling back from California to Montana when tragedy struck. They checked into a hotel, and Richard sat down on the bed. The two had just said how much they loved one another when Richard fell back onto the bed. Carolaine initially thought Ricard was sleeping, but she began giving him CPR and screaming for help when he didn't wake. The next day, on December 6th, 2013, he passed away from a massive heart attack.
Carolaine has no regrets; she cherishes every moment she and Richard spent together. "It was a marriage made in Heaven," she closes.
