They didn't have much in common, but it doesn't matter. They're building a happy life together, for as long as it lasts.
By LANE DeGREGORY
Published February 13, 2004
[Times photo: Bob Croslin]
Nancy Bullock and Stephen Oakley plan to marry in June, a year after they met.
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CLEARWATER - The part about the nurse made her notice: His personal ad said he was 60 years old. Widowed. A nurse.
"It made him stand out from all the 'I like going to flea markets and taking long walks at sunset,' " she said.
So Nancy Bullock called the number in the newspaper and left a message. A few hours later, Stephen Oakley called back. They agreed to meet at her mobile home in Doral Village, north of Westfield Shoppingtown Countryside, the next Wednesday, June 25.
Before either of them knew.
* * *
He arrived empty-handed. No candy, no flowers. She didn't offer him anything to eat or drink.
He sat on the sofa. She sat in an armchair. They talked for about an hour.
"Well, he talked," Nancy said. "About his dead wife."
"It wasn't about Joyce. It was about how wonderful all our years were together, how I got to take care of her," Stephen said. "How this glorious light shone around her when she finally left me."
"He went on and on about Joyce," Nancy said. "I couldn't get a word in edgewise."
"Nancy was pretty standoffish," Stephen said. "And she's from New Jersey. Talk about a nightmare! I told her I'd call her again. But I wasn't sure I could get past the New Jersey."
"I didn't care if he called," Nancy said. "There was no chemistry. No fireworks."
The next night he called.
"How was your day at work?" he asked.
"I never made it to work," she said.
* * *
Fate. Karma. God's will. Timing. Call it what you will, Nancy and Stephen believe.
If they had met a week before, Nancy wouldn't have needed him.
If he hadn't called back, he never would have known.
That morning, the morning after their disastrous first date, Nancy had gone to the doctor for her annual mammogram. He discovered a string of tumors around Nancy's left breast.
"I have Stage 2 breast cancer," she told Stephen the night after they met.
"I'm going to die."
* * *
The next day, during his lunch break, Stephen went to a Wal-Mart and bought a card. Then he drove to Nancy's house and left it on her back door.
When she got home from work, Nancy found the envelope. The message Stephen wrote inside is etched on her heart:
"Anything you ask of me, I will do."
* * *
Two weeks after they met, Stephen drove Nancy to Morton Plant Hospital, where she would undergo a partial mastectomy. He stayed with her every evening, watching sitcoms, telling her stories, making her laugh.
He told her about his time in the Navy, when he served in North Africa. He told her about his co-workers at Tampa International, where he has done electronic aviation work for 23 years. He talked about his patients in the surgical ward at East Pasco Medical Center, where he has been a weekend nurse since 1998.
He talked about his grown sons, Keith and Stephen. And of course he talked about their mom, Joyce. They'd been high school sweethearts. They were married 36 years. Four years ago, she died of pancreatic cancer.
When Nancy got stronger, she started sharing some of herself. She told Stephen she was 54. She has been married three times, the first time for 30 years. Over the past five years, she married and divorced twice more. "Bad choices," she told him.
She never had children. Her dad is dead. She hasn't spoken to her mom or two brothers in years. She works in Clearwater, in sales. She has a hamster and a gerbil. She loves swimming at the beach.
He hates swimming in saltwater, he told her. He loves science fiction movies and Sunday afternoon football.
She hates science fiction. She has never watched a whole football game.
Above the bleeps of the monitors, between nurses changing bandages and doctors checking in, Nancy and Stephen started stitching together pieces of each other's pasts.
* * *
When Nancy got to go home, Stephen moved in to take care of her. He made her dinner.
When she had to go back and have the rest of her breast removed, he took all his vacation time to stay with her at the hospital. Every afternoon, he drove to her house to get her mail, to feed her hamster and gerbil.
When she missed so much work that she couldn't afford the rent on her mobile home, he paid her back bills - plus the next month's.
"If it wasn't for him . . . " Nancy's voice trailed off. She hid her face in her hands.
"I kept telling him, "I'm no good for you,' " she said.
* * *
Nancy decided not to undergo chemo. She doesn't know how much time she has left. But whatever it is, she is going to spend it with Stephen.
She's learning to like watching football on Sundays.
He's learning to tolerate swimming in saltwater.
They're going to get married in June, a year after they met.
