If there is one thing that you can be certain about when it comes to love. It’s that nothing is certain when it comes to love.
Not many people are okay with this. When you find yourself in love with a person who, in some way – maybe it’s age, gender, background, race, religion – is ‘unexpected’ to those around you (maybe your feelings are even unexpected to yourself) some tough questions can be thrown your way.
“Sooo, do you only like girls now?”
“What happens if you break up, now you’ve ‘come out’ and all”
“You know you want be able to get married in our church?”
“How will you tell the family?”
With these thoughts in mind, I can only imagine the questions former U.S. senator Harris Wofford has faced over the last 15 years, since the start of his relationship with Matthew Charlton, a man 50 years his junior.
Particularly considering Wofford was married and in love with his wife Clare for 48 years, before she died from leukaemia in 1996.
In an attempt to answer these questions (and teach a few people a thing or two along the way) Wofford has written a moving, heart-felt and very honest column in the New York Times. He called it Finding love again, this time with a man.
“We were decades apart in age with far different professional interests, yet we clicked,” Wofford wrote about his meeting Charlton. “We both felt the immediate spark and, as time went on, we realised our bond had grown into love. Other than with Clare, I had never felt love blossom this way before.”
