Chapter 1: The Shocking Afternoon Tea News
Salvador entered autumn with gentle breezes carrying the scent of Atlantic sea salt. In the sun-drenched drawing-room of the Miller family mansion, Mrs. Kasy, a woman who had just turned 100 with astonishing lucidity, was leisurely sipping Earl Grey tea.
Surrounding her were three generations of her family: her retired children, her grandchildren running corporations, and her mischievous great-grandchildren. They had gathered to celebrate her centenary. But Mrs. Kasy had other plans.
“I have an announcement,” Mrs. Kasy said, her voice still as clear as a bell. “I'm getting married next month.”
The room fell into a deathly silence. The fork in her eldest daughter Margaret's hand clattered against the porcelain plate with a jarring sound.
“You're getting married?” Margaret asked, both anxious and disbelieving. “Mom, you’ve been a widow for thirty years. Dad passed away in the 90s, remember?”
“I remember every day since your father left,” Mrs. Kasy replied with an unusual calmness. She adjusted her elegantly styled, silvery hair. “It’s time I pampered myself for someone.”
The grandsons exchanged glances, thinking of the old-timers' love scams. They began to worry about the enormous fortune she possessed. Who would dare try to “woo” a 100-year-old woman? A young gold digger or some greedy old man?
Chapter 2: The Hunt for the “Groom’s” Identity
No one knew how to answer. Suspicion gripped the Miller family. Margaret and her two younger brothers decided to hire a private investigator to find out who their mother was meeting. Mrs. Kasy had been going out every Wednesday afternoon lately, dressed in her finest silk dresses and wearing Chanel No. 5 – a perfume she'd kept hidden away in her closet for three decades.
“Her behavior is very strange,” the detective reported. “She doesn't go to dance clubs or meet the old men at the nursing home. She only goes to a small house by the river in the south of the city. The owner of that house is a man named Arthur, 102 years old.”
The Miller family breathed a sigh of relief… then became anxious again. 102 years old? Two people together is more than two centuries. This wasn't a gold digger, but it was truly insane.
Margaret decided to confront her mother: “Mom, who is Arthur? Why have you kept this a secret from us all this time?”
Mrs. Kasy smiled, her dull, time-worn blue eyes suddenly sparkling with youthful energy. “Arthur isn't a stranger. Arthur is the man your mother promised to marry in 1942, before she even met your father.”
Chapter 3: Secrets from World War II
The family gathered again to hear Kasy recount her past – a chapter she had never opened.
In 1942, at the New York harbor, Kasy was a passionate young nurse. Arthur was a dashing military pilot. They were madly in love and engaged. But war broke out, and Arthur had to go to the Pacific. Before leaving, they vowed: “Whatever happens, we will marry when the war is over.”
But Arthur was reported killed in an air battle at sea. Kasy was devastated. Years later, she met Miller – a kind man who helped her heal. She married, had children, and lived an exemplary life.
“I loved your father, that's true,” Mrs. Kasy whispered. “But I always felt there was an unbroken thread connecting me to the past. Six months ago, I stumbled upon a news item in a veterans' newspaper. Arthur was still alive. He wasn't dead, but he was taken prisoner and then suffered from amnesia for a long time. By the time he regained his memory, I had already started my own family. He chose to watch me happy from afar for the past 50 years.”
Arthur had also married, and was now a widower. Now, at their advanced age, they found each other again through a chance handwritten letter.
Chapter 4: The Wedding of the Century
The wedding was held in the very garden of Miller Manor. There was no more opposition, only tears of emotion.
Margaret looked at her mother in her elegant cream-colored wedding dress, her face radiant like a young woman in her twenties. Mrs. Kasy didn't need to beautify herself to attract anyone; she beautified herself to fulfill a promise to her own youth.
The groom, Arthur, entered in a wheelchair adorned with white roses. As their wrinkled, age-spotted hands clasped together, the entire Savannah seemed to hold its breath.
“You're 80 years late,” Mrs. Kasy whispered.
“I know,” Arthur replied, his voice hoarse with emotion. “But I promised I would.”
They didn't exchange vows for a long future; they exchanged recognition for a love that had endured bombs, separation, and a century of turmoil.
Chapter 5: Ageless Beauty
After the wedding, Mrs. Kasy didn't move anywhere. Arthur moved in with her at the mansion. In the afternoons, the two could be seen sitting by the window, hand in hand, silently watching the sunset over the Savannah River.
“It's true, Mom, you're beautifying yourself for a reason.”
“That person,” Margaret admitted, seeing her mother meticulously applying pink lipstick and wearing the pearl earrings Arthur had given her each morning. “That person is the Kasy of 1942 who will always live in her heart.”
A wedding at age 100 is not a joke, nor is it madness. It is salvation. Kasy taught the entire Miller family a lesson: Love has no expiration date, and the human heart never grows old as long as it still holds a promise to wait for.
💡 Lesson from the story
Time may wrinkle the skin, but it cannot fade sincere vows. Kasy's story reminds us: Never give up on finding your own happiness, no matter your age. Sometimes, the most beautiful ending is not living together for a lifetime, but fulfilling a promise to the person we once cherished throughout our youth.