I admired my future husband from afar for a couple of years before we finally met at a horse show where we were both competitors. He had a great sense of humor, was a terrific horseman and looked like Frank Sinatra. I was hooked.

He was recently divorced and looking. Of course I had been looking at him for a long time already. I was 20 and he was 45. I saw nothing but his smile. Neither the age difference nor the fact that he was two inches shorter than I am made any difference. There was something about him that caught and held my attention. Perhaps it was the way he treated his horses...he talked baby talk to them and I loved it.

Our first date followed that show. We put our horses away in their respective barns then he picked me up for dinner in his Rolls Royce. He was wealthy, but it made no difference to me. He could have been a starving, out-of-work cowboy; I didn't care. It was love at first sight. Within a year we were married and continued our winning ways together. Marrying A Much Older Man Made Me A Better Person

One of our horse trainer friends invited us to dinner one evening. The wife was older than I was but she, too, was many years younger than her husband. After eating, the men talked about horses and training while us girls sat in the kitchen over a cup of tea and talked about being married to men twice our age.

She mentioned that although she loved her husband dearly, he was slowing down and she was still rearing to go. She warned me about what was to come. Aches, pains and illnesses...she didn't paint a pretty picture.

Some years later my husband had a stroke. He was 58. Within the year, I found myself alone, running a ranch without my best friend and confidant. I was only 34. True Love: Caring For My Sick Husband

Things that had been so routine suddenly seemed strange and out of place. I began to doubt my abilities in the show ring. I was no different, but my life certainly was. The vultures came out of nowhere, and I had no one to watch my back. I had to keep telling myself that although my partner was gone, I was still the same person, I held the same knowledge, and my talents were still as great as ever. Yet a part of me was missing. It was hard to function as a whole person.

I had known for a year that his life was ebbing and he would be leaving me. I often thought of what would be worse: a knock at the door informing me that my husband had been killed in a car wreck or watching him slowly slip away, hour by hour, day after day?

I was with him when he took his last breath. I felt as though it was mine. One second he was there and the next he was gone. We had said all there was to say between two people in love. Sharing the good times and the sad times, we relived our entire married life within a few days. Then he was gone.

I missed hearing him in the barn, talking to the horses. I expected him to walk around the corner any second to ask me a question or ask for my help. Instead there was only silence. Day after lonely day...silence.