Prime Time

POSTED: Sunday, Nov. 09, 2008

PROFILE: Life gave Nanette Graham a second chance

Name: Nanette Graham

Age: 88

Residence: Bellingham for three years.

Losses in life: Graham says she did not find happiness in her first marriage. "I was married to this tall, dark and handsome attorney-at-law. As his practice and his name became well-known (pride) crept in and I was there with four children and he was having an affair. I hung in there for years for the children."

Doing something for herself: "When the children were all into college or beyond, I was invited to visit France. I'd never been to Europe, didn't speak a word of French, but two years later I started my own tour company."

Finding love: "Meanwhile, in an adult education class (in 1979), I met Robert (Graham pronounces it like the French rOh-ber). Robert Graham. As Anglo-Saxon as you can get, but he was Robert and I was Nanette."

Years of honeymooning: For 15 years, Graham's company, Unicorn Tours, took groups of six tourists to France. Robert came along after retiring early. "He was the most open, honest, nice man, obviously, that I've ever known. So we honeymooned in France, in Europe, for all those years."

Idyllic time: "We had our church, our food, our beach walks, we had a circle of friends we did things with, so that was our life, and off we would go back to France," Graham says.

Open honesty: "I can't tell you what it is to be able to give and receive and be in that kind of relationship," Graham says. "He was the most open, honest - that's why the French loved him. He didn't make any bones about trying to speak French, he just would try."

Together at last: Finally, when Graham was 71 and Robert was 69, the time was right to make it official. "I asked my husband to go ahead and get the divorce and he did. Robert and I married the next day," Graham says.

The look of love: "Someone said, 'I loved to sit behind them in church, just the way they looked at each other - it was the most wonderful thing.'" Graham says the couple included that feeling in her tours, which made them a joyful, loving environment for everyone.

Sweet surprises: "How much more fun it was to be older and freer and have a sense of sort of knowing what you're about rather than plunging into something unknown," Graham says. "In other words, self-confidence."

Deeper than dating: "It's not the same as dating when you're younger," Graham says. "It's just sort of merging your lives and doing what you'd planned or what there was to do."

Spiritual connection: Graham and Robert were together for 15 years and spent three of them married before he passed away in 1994 at age 72. "A Unitarian minister married us and a Unitarian minister buried him," Graham says.

Strength through overcoming: "We didn't have any really bad times. I remember standing on a bridge in Paris over the Seine River and thinking, 'Here we are, look what we've done and accomplished. Who would've thought this?' Be open to what's ahead and to broadening your experience and your life."

A shared path: "It was totally wonderful to have somebody who I could talk to, somebody to communicate with - that taught me to communicate - and share life with. I hadn't been able to share life and when you've worked hard and long, raised children and all this, you need to be able to share what you are at this stage of your life."

Julia Waggoner is a Bellingham freelance writer.