Their Losses Were Followed by a Healing Gain
New love was the last thing on Al Catriz’s mind when he attended a bereavement group at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in January 1996. One month earlier, he’d lost his wife of 34 years to a sudden illness and was struggling with grief. He does remember, however, noticing Honey Fishkin, who he thought seemed “the most adjusted” of the five-member group of recent widows and widowers.
“If I seemed more together, it was only because I was more prepared,” said Honey, who had lost her husband of 30 years three months earlier after an extended fight with cancer. Honey didn’t feel she needed the group at all. She came to support a friend, also recently widowed. But it was a good thing she did come, because a year later, when Al felt it was time to get on with his life, Honey was the first woman he called. A year and a half after that, on July 11, the couple vowed to take that uncertain trip called marriage again in an evening ceremony in the backyard of Al’s Lomita home.
Changed by experience, the two admit they approach marriage differently now. A retired Navy captain who spent 28 years in the service, Al, 64, said, “It’s funny. In the military you have to be Mr. Macho and show you can handle everything. We’re accused of being unemotional. But [in the group] I found myself expressing my emotions much more. I’m much more open now than before.”
Honey, 54, who works in the security department for Hughes Space and Communications in El Segundo, said her life has taught her the importance of appreciating the people you love every day.
While in the bereavement group, which met weekly for three months, Honey and Al had become friends. Honey admitted she felt an attraction, but kept it to herself. When the group ended in May, that was it. She thought.
The following December, Al sent Honey a Christmas card. She wrote back, and in February he finally called and asked her for a date. On their first date, they went to Santa Anita, where Honey, who had never bet on a horse, picked five out of nine winners. Al started to think maybe he’d picked a winner, too.
As for Honey, “I never saw another man again.”
Eventually, Al and Honey knew they wanted to spend their future together, but not marry. They bought property in Washington for their retirement home. “We felt for legal and financial reasons we were better off unmarried,” said Honey. Then one night at the kitchen table they began discussing all the advantages of marriage. They seemed to be saying maybe there’s more to be said for this marriage thing. Then Honey said, “Why not? We’re in love.”
“What?” Al cleared his ears. “Are you telling me you want to get married?”
“I guess so.”
And so, with trepidation, the two took one more leap of faith before 60 guests and, with the setting sun shining brightly on their faces, vowed to love each other, one day at a time, in a ceremony they wrote for themselves. “I wanted no sadness,” said Honey. “I wanted this to be a celebration of life.”
To find someone to perform a Jewish / Christian, nonsectarian, nontraditional, yet not civil ceremony, Honey turned to the Yellow Pages and dialed 1-800 IMARRYU to find Patricia Swanson, a minister from Pasadena who has married people in many kinds of ceremonies. Honey’s two sons escorted her down the aisle. She wore a long ivory dress accented with embroidered lace. She and Al exchanged boughs of ivy as a symbol of the patience and endurance of love, and they performed the Jewish tradition of breaking the glass to symbolize that life is precious and easily lost.
As the house is adjacent to Torrance Airport, Honey informed air traffic control that the wedding party would be releasing 50 balloons sometime after 5 p.m. Airport officials issued a pilot’s advisory, which made for a quiet ceremony, marred by just one errant plane. Otherwise, the event was happily punctuated by the spontaneous popping of pink and white balloons, a clattering of empty plastic champagne glasses toppled by a breeze and the cries of Honey’s 1-year-old granddaughter, Ariana.
During the reception, the couple exchanged toasts, and Honey’s “Breakfast Club” (pals from work) serenaded her with their revised and slightly off-key version of “Sunrise, Sunset.” They were clearly enamored of this romance. “We’ve followed this whole story, and it’s just so romantic,” said one Breakfast Club member, “how he noticed her at a bereavement group, then waited a year to call.”
“Most people are lucky to find one love in their lives,” said another, dreamily. “They’re lucky. They’ve found two.”
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