When COVID struck, it wreaked havoc on many of us. However, while lots of people suffered great loss, there were some happy consequences to the pandemic, as for one couple from Cincinnati.
A divorced mom and dad, Julie Shore and Scott Gaede, were forced to live under the same roof when COVID restrictions came into force in 2020. And as Shore pointed out to Today.com:
It was forced proximity. Neither of us were looking forward to spending time together.”
This arrangement concerned their two daughters, Rachel, 24, and Caroline, 20, as they remember feeling a sense of relief when their parents had split six years previously.
The divorce, after 17 years of marriage, wasn’t pleasant, as Shore had pointed out. However, the couple were now thrust together and decided that they would make an effort for the sake of their children.
As time went on the couple were getting on well and it wasn’t until nearly a year later that they realized just how much they were at ease in each other’s company. Shore recognized that she was constantly laughing around her ex-husband.
Heartbreak and love
Yet the trigger for their reunion came after her ex-husband endured two heartbreaking losses. As she accompanied him to the funeral she had a sort of epiphany:
Everything from the past fell away and I realized that family was all that mattered and the four of us needed to be together again.”
With love back in the air, the daughters told their dad to propose — echoing the meddling twin daughters in The Parent Trap who got their parents back together with a little mischievous matchmaking. However, Gaede needed no encouraging and got down on one knee in 2022.
The couple remarried at the end of this past year and are confident — as are their daughters — in what the future holds for them. As Rachel shared:
“Some people are saying, ‘All that drama between your parents was for nothing.’ But it wasn’t for nothing. They learned about forgiveness and resilience and growth.“
And today we celebrate...