Our Story by Bob Fried and Debbie McCarthy

This is a story of a Widower and a Widow, where we are from, how we met, and a start of a long distance relationship. I hope you enjoy reading it, as

much as we have enjoyed living it, with more to come.

I share this story so much, Debbie says “my whole town knows it”, and I usually start off with,”You ain’t gonna' believe this story”. Well she said I can’t do that here so I won’t and I’ll move along into “Our Story”!

Hi! My name is Bob, I’m a widower from rural Southern Indiana, a “Country Boy” if you will. I lost my wife after a battle with Frontal Temporal Dementia. Debbie is from Long Island New York, and lost her husband to cancer.

On November of 2022 I had went shopping at Bass Pro for some new flannel shirts. Along with the new flannel shirts, I found a hat I liked and one morning before going to work, I posted a picture dressed in one of my new flannel shirts and new hat on the Widow / Widower Dating USA page. Well! After a few days there were 517 hits on my picture, which either included reactions, or comments, and one said “Very handsome”.

Yes you guessed it! It was Debbie! I clicked on her profile and then messaged her, Thanking her for her compliment. We tried the messaging thing, she sent me her phone number and then went to text. That wasn’t working well so I called her, we talked for 2 hrs. and 58 min. Wow! We talked so much and so long I was keeping track of the hours, it was our own little thing to joke about on how many hours we had talked, so many now I can’t keep up.

Then on into January, I told her that my shooting partner and I were planning on going to Florida. I was going first and my shooting partner was to fly down later. I was going to take my shotgun to have it serviced and shoot in a Sporting Clay Tournament while we were there. In the mean time my shooting partner backed out, and Debbie said, “I’ll come down to meet you! That put the trip back on and we planned our meet up. She wanted her sister and her sister’s boyfriend to come as a safety thing and I readily agreed.

I started my trip on Sunday and she was flying out of Long Island Monday morning, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend were also flying out of Houston on Monday morning to meet at the Orlando airport. I got up early Monday morning and headed for Orlando. Meanwhile they were all flying there.

I pulled in the lot and there she was. All I could say was “wow”! We had Face-timed but this the first in person meet.

Next stop was the hotel at Vero Beach. We went to check in and Debbie checked first, after she finished, I told the lady I was checking in too. “Oh your not together?” “Well yes but no.” The check-in lady said my room was on the first floor and Debbie’s was on the second. She asked if I wanted to be on the second floor with Debbie?” “Of course I did” I said. Debbie laughed and said “You didn’t ask me”. The poor check-in lady didn’t know what to say, but it was all good. We got a laugh out of it for several days talking about how perplexed she was over our check-in.

To say we clicked right away would be an understatement. We meshed like the gears in a fine Swiss watch. We had talked for hours, every day so our meeting was so natural. We enjoyed the beach, the pool, and dinning out. Her sister and her sister’s boyfriend gave me an A+ rating and they had to leave on Wednesday. Debbie however stayed!

We continued our beach and pool routine along with going back to several restaurants we had found. Since I was also there to shoot in a Sporting Clay Tournament, I wanted to shoot a practice round on Friday and at the same time introduce Debbie to my hobby. She wanted to drive the golf cart around the course for me. ”Not a problem.”

Then I showed how to push the buttons on the remote to release the clay targets when I called for them. She did a fantastic job and enjoyed it to boot.

Well Saturday brought the Tournament and our last day together! After shooting and enjoying the lunch provided by the club we proceeded to the Orlando airport to where I would drop her off and I would head back to Southern Indiana. The good bye was horrible!

Back home! Our first good phone call after we both got back was a discussion of how unbelievable our meet up was! Again to say it “great” would be an understatement! We both had the time of our lives and enjoyed each other tremendously and talked about it for hours weeks on end!

February comes and we are having a little difficulty of adjusting to our time apart, so Debbie says “I’m coming to see you on the 18th. GREAT! In the meantime we’re talking and decide the 17th would be even better. One day closer. Right?

So Debbie ask her Supervisor if she can have off the 17th to come see me. In the meantime we have Valentine’s Day and I had messaged her sister for her home address, as I wanted to surprise her with flowers. I didn’t send a dozen roses, but an FTD Valentine’s Day bouquet. I wasn’t sure how to have the card to read, so I put “TO: PRETTY LADY” (that’s what I would call her) “FROM: VERY HANDSOME!” The best thing was, it was delivered while we were on the phone.

Now this coming to see me is no small feat, even for a city girl. She has to take 3 trains and a plane to get to Louisville, Kentucky, the nearest airport.

When she arrived it was like picking up where we left off! The weather was great for February and we toured downtown Louisville, she cooked some meals for me, met my parents and then I cooked a big meal for Sunday dinner with my children and grand-kids. Debbie drove my side by side all over the farm and through the woods, and especially enjoyed getting me muddy from hitting all the mud puddles on my side that she could. She also got to attend another Sporting Clay Tournament at my home gun club where this time she learned how to keep my and my shooting partner’s scores, while my shooting partner’s wife worked the remote.

So we found goodbyes are hard, we’ve both wondered how each of the other couples felt while being in a long distance relationship. Now we know. It tears on our hearts!

So March has past and we haven’t seen each other since the February the 25th. Yes there’s been a lot of “miss you”s and hugs and kisses texted to each other since. Again more phone conversations of how well we meshed, how much my parents loved her, and my kids are already asking “When is Debbie coming back?” (Soon I hope!), and what a great time she had. It’s just good all the way around!

But wait, there’s more! Since the city girl came to the country, the country boy is headed for the city! My plane left Louisville April 3rd. We couldn’t wait! Stay tuned for more of “Our Story” as it unfolds. We are both excited about our future together! Of course when I tell this story it’s the abbreviated version lol.

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