By Joanne Byrne
Retired and Rejuvenated
Joanne Byrne.
We all love listening to a good fairy tale. I read about this one recently in the Sarasota Herald and just had to share it with you. I am sure you know of couples who once were childhood sweethearts, grew up and away from each other, found other partners, married, raised children, developed careers, retired and lost track of their early “loves.”
The couple in this story doesn’t remember the first time they met, but that’s not important in fairy tales. It is how it ends that’s important, and all that can happen once the magic sets in.
This story involves Tinker Bell, who will marry her life-long sweetheart, who she has not seen in 70 years, on this coming Valentine’s Day. All that will be missing are the wings on her wedding dress.
Yes, there really is a Tinker Bell. She is now a 90-year-old California resident who was the reference model for the sprite in the 1953 classic “Peter Pan.” For nine months she dressed in a bathing suit, put her hair in a bun and pantomimed the movements of Tinker Bell for the animated film.
She had dated her boyfriend for over a year in the late 1940s. He was a student at the University of Southern California at the time. One night he took her to a dance and gave her a bracelet, which remained in her jewelry box for the next 70 years.
Then came the split. He took a job elsewhere. She continued to work on sets as an actress. Their lives went on separately. Both married other people, and after many happy years each lost their spouses to illnesses. She was a widow for 20 years and raised three children along the way.
Their lives were full and accomplished. She wrote a book about her experiences, noting the effect Tinker Bell had on people. A depressed 300-pound lady lost half her weight because looking at her Tinker Bell tattoo was an inspiration. A 19-year-old girl filled her room with Tinker Bell dolls because they represented happiness. It was no coincidence this girl’s brain cancer went into remission.
The man was nothing short of inspiration himself. He served in both Europe and the Pacific theater during World War II. It was on a recent tour of battle sites with a friend that he saw the Tinker Bell emblem in a toy store in Amsterdam. He remarked that he had once dated Tinker Bell and told his friend about his first love.
The friend was somehow able to locate the real Tinker Bell through her website and sent an email asking her if she remembered her first love.
A few days later the gentleman was being honored at the historic D-Day ceremony in France, where Emmanuel Macron shook his hand. But there was another thrill that day, when he received an email from his Tinker Bell. They spoke on the phone. When she hung up, she went to her jewelry box, and there it was, the bracelet he had given her at the fraternity dance 70 years before. She never quite knew why she kept it, but now it was clear.
When he returned to California, he drove nine hours to meet her for the first time in seven decades. They kissed, and it only got more wonderful from there. She proposed to him one morning over breakfast and he said yes. The 94 and 90-year-olds will be married on this coming Valentine’s Day in the same California church as Ronald and Nancy Reagan were married. They will move into a new home. He likes to golf, and she likes the arts, and it is close to Disney World, where all the magic happens. As with all good fairy tales, they plan to live happily ever after.
Joanne Byrne served as Senior Services Coordinator for the Town of Orange. She is now actively and happily retired. Email her at joannebyrne41@gmail.com to share your thoughts on retirement.