Joan DeLevie (R) tells her daughter, Sharon (L), how she met her husband, Ari at a party in 1959.
Transcript
Joan DeLevie (JD): I saw this guy with a head of black hair and white, white, teeth and dark eyes and honest to God, my heart started to like beat. We sort of caught each other’s eye and then he came over. And I said: ‘This be the guy.’ We started dating and then we were engaged about a month later. And this is exactly how he proposed: ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage.’ (laughter) I said, ‘What? (laughter), what did you say?’ He says, ‘Oh I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage.’ And he said, ‘Do you want to get married?’ I said, ‘yes.’ Then it was problematic because his parents were against me and my parents were against him. He had a hole in his heart. My parents insisted that his parents send them the x-rays so they could bring the x-rays to their doctor to make sure that he wasn’t going to die in about a minute. (laughter) Sharon DeLevie (SD): How has your life been different than you imagined it? JD: My feeling was that I would get married, have two to three children and be bored. Whereas being married to Daddy has been a very exciting journey and way different than I thought it would be. SD: Tell me about Daddy. JD: Daddy has no hair anymore, his teeth are still white, and he personifies the word kind. I have lung cancer, stage four, and he’s been my caretaker for a year and a half, and everything runs so smoothly because of him. I mean if you know Ari you know that he’s the one who you want to take care of you if your sick like this. He was probably the luckiest thing that’s every happened to me and believe me it’s luck.