Widowers find each other

CHARLOTTE -- Maybe it was just luck that Max Zimmerman and Richard Delano met at a Charlotte senior center. But it was so perfect, so well-timed, Richard's daughter wonders whether God was involved.

Both men had lost their wives of more than 50 years. They'd had good careers -- Max as a plumber, Richard as an electrician. They'd raised children, grown old. In all that time, their wives had been their best friends.

Now they were widowers, going to the senior center for hot lunches, searching for something to fill empty days, wondering what the rest of life held.

Many widowers remarry. Some go it alone. Max and Richard did what few old men in America do: They moved in together.

In a culture that sometimes undervalues male friendships and celebrates individualism, their living arrangement is rare, experts say. Often, people assume they're brothers.

But why, Max wonders, would a person choose to be alone? "Living alone," he says, "is no good for you."

Max, 87, and Richard, 86, were relaxing on plastic chairs in Richard's garage one day when Max offered a joke from his inexhaustible repertoire.

You know why men die before their wives?

Because they want to.

Richard had heard this one before. Still, he chuckled.

But really, the joke didn't apply to either man. Both adored their wives.

Max fell in love with Ettie soon after they first danced in Chicago's Aragon Ballroom in 1943. He was devastated when she died of cancer in 2000. "I sold my business, sold my house. There was no longer anything in that city for me."

At 80, he moved from Chicago to Charlotte to live with his son, Joel. He was still grieving when he met Richard in 2003.

Richard's wife, Doris, had died a month earlier from Alzheimer's disease. They'd been married 56 years.

Like Max, Richard had fallen in love hard -- soon after he bumped into Doris, literally, at a skating rink.

He and Doris spent their working lives in Indianapolis, then retired to Starr, S.C. When Alzheimer's struck, they moved to a house in Charlotte, two blocks from their daughter.

Richard took care of Doris until the end. Now he faced an empty schedule.

After meeting Max at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Senior Center, he learned that Max was taking a Spanish class. Richard thought that sounded interesting, so he enrolled, too. Then Max persuaded him to join the Levine Jewish Community Center, where Max exercised.

In some ways, the two were very different. Max enjoyed good-natured grousing. And he often contemplated life's big questions -- love, death, loneliness.

Richard was such an agreeable fellow that his son-in-law made him a T-shirt adorned with his favorite phrase: "Okey-dokey."

But their personalities meshed. Both were fix-it guys who liked to tinker and learn new things. They might have remained merely workout buddies, but in 2004, Max had to find a new home because his son was moving to Maryland.

Richard lived with his cat, Charcoal. The three-bedroom house felt empty. Why not move in with me? he asked Max.

Max stayed over a couple of nights to try out the arrangement, then packed up his Dodge van and hauled his things to Richard's house.

Coping with loss

Both men had assumed their wives would outlive them. Usually, that's what happens. In 2001, about 17 percent of men 70 and older were widowers, compared with nearly 53 percent of women.

When wives do die first, men tend to grieve differently, often longer and harder, experts say.

For many older men, wives are the primary source of emotional support. So when wives die, "the husbands really lose that confidante -- the person they'd lean on," says Jordan Kosberg, a University of Alabama social work professor.

That's what happened to Max and Richard. "Not to be dramatic about it," Max says, "but not a day goes by when I don't say to myself, 'I got to go tell that to Ettie.' "

A recent article in AARP The Magazine describes home sharing as "a hot housing trend for older women." It never mentions men.

No surprise, really. Men who have close friendships with other men risk being assumed to be gay, Kosberg says. Our culture hasn't encouraged such relationships, especially among older men.

At home, e-mail and solitaire on the computer keep them busy. Since Max moved in, the family room's centerpiece has become a large table that holds two computer monitors, purchased for $10 each at a Goodwill, plus a bevy of computer parts and a how-to book, "Easy Computing for Seniors."

It's just the way they like it, though they know a woman might regard the setup as an eyesore. "If we were married," Max says, "this would not exist."

The two also take classes at Central Piedmont Community College -- welding, air conditioning, engineering, German, computers. They've enrolled so often an Army recruiter called recently, thinking he had a couple of college-age prospects.

Sharing a house, Max and Richard have discovered, has cut their expenses and expanded their social lives. They've basically become members of each other's families.

And it has given them more independence, traveling across the country together.