Forever Love

Tricia was 13 when she met Robbie at his home in Enterprise, Alabama, where they both lived. His sister, Lynn, was a new friend and asked Tricia over to spend time together. She immediately developed a huge crush on the cute blond-headed 15-year-old boy.

After going over a few times, Robbie and Tricia ended up sneaking off to make out in his parents’ station wagon, which was parked in the garage. She says it was the best kisses ever until one of his sisters found them and put an end to it.

His was a military family, and shortly after, his dad was transferred by the Army to Maryland. She wrote to him but after a few weeks, her letters came back unopened and stamped undeliverable.  Tricia was crushed. Robbie was her first kiss and first love.

Robbie’s family moved back to Enterprise several years later. He was a senior in high school, and she a junior. She was dating a college guy and he had a line of girls hoping to date him. She moved to Florida after graduation, while he eventually went into the Air Force.

When Robbie was 22, he went back to Enterprise. He phoned Tricia’s adopted mother to try and find her. He was told that Tricia had moved to Florida, but he didn’t learn where. 

“She never told me that he tried to find me, so I didn’t know about that until we reconnected,” says Tricia.

Fifty years after they first met, Robbie and Tricia reconnected on social media and began calling each other.

“We became best friends, talking and laughing,” she says. “Eventually we would talk every day. It then became hours every day, sometimes until 3 or 4 in the morning. He was sending me songs that he had recorded that made it apparent he had romantic feelings for me. At least I thought he did. I thought that he may be falling in love with me, but I was resisting as I was happy with my life.”

After months of talking constantly, she finally realized that she had fallen in love.

“I was in San Diego, boarding a flight, and it hit me. I was head over heels in love with this man,” she says. 

Two days later, she sent him a GIF by social media. 

“That’s how I told him that I loved him,” she says. “Then I turned my phone off for a couple of hours.  As soon as I turned it back on, it rang.”

 He was stuttering and asking what that meant.  

“It means what it says,” she told him. “I love you. I’m in love with you.”  

His response: “Thank you.”

She laughed and replied, “Really dude? I think you’ve been wanting to hear this for a while, and that’s all the response I get?” 

He then added, “I love you, too.”

Robbie booked a flight to Wilmington to see her. He arrived on a Thursday evening and stayed until Monday. 

“I’ve fallen in love with him three times since I was a 13-year-old girl,” she says. “The boy, the person on the phone, and then the man that came to Wilmington that weekend.”

Until Robbie, Tricia believed she’d never get married again.

“Once I fell in love with him, that changed,” she says. “I wanted to be his wife. He was my first love, and my last. My forever. So, I decided to propose to him. I bought him an ‘engagement’ ring to wear on his right hand.” 

She took a diamond that she had, purchased a setting for her engagement ring, and then two wedding bands. Inside his band, she engraved “thank you” as something romantic and playful.

“Also, to remind him of what he said to me when I finally told him that I was in love with him,” she says. “When I did ask him, I said, ‘Baby, I’ve waited 50 years for you. I love who you are. You are kind, thoughtful, sexy, smart, funny, and just an amazing human being.  You are the best thing I never planned. I don’t care that I wasn’t your first love, but I’d love to be your last. Will you marry me?”

He said yes.

Robbie and Tricia will marry in early 2023.