Everything I Know About Love, I Learned From My Grandparents

so i'm dedicating a romance novel to them

Today is my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary.

Can you imagine being lucky enough to go through that much life with the same person? Waking up next to them. Having your own seats at the dinner table. A shared routine that becomes second nature. Seeing the world, slowly, through their eyes. It’s such a rare and beautiful thing.

They met at an ice cream parlor. My grandpa saw my grandma from across the room but was too shy to say anything. She left, and he thought he missed his chance. But then he spotted her friend in the phone booth, walked over, and asked, “Are you talking to the brunette who was just here?” And she was. So he asked her on a date to see a movie and that was it.

I think about that moment a lot. How love like theirs wasn’t some big, fated thing—it started with a single question. One small decision that changed everything. From there, they built a life that’s spanned six decades—four kids, ten grandkids, careers, illnesses, heartbreak, joy. It blows my mind how something so big can come from something so simple.

At their 50th anniversary party, my grandpa gave a speech and said something I’ve never forgotten: "Fifty years of marriage feels like scrolling through your camera roll as fast as you can. There are so many memories, some of them become blurry, but they’re all there—and they remind you just how much of life you’ve gone through with this person."

Lately love has felt like something meant for other people. I’m 29 and single. Some days that feels empowering but other days it feels like I’m waiting for something that may never come. I often wonder if soulmates are real and whether love like my grandparents' is even possible anymore. It’s easy to spiral. To look at dating apps and first dates and almosts and think: this isn’t going to happen for me.

Then I think about them. About 60 years of choosing each other. About the boring days and the hard seasons and the ways they’ve grown and softened and held each other through it all. Their story didn’t come from a grand romantic gesture. It started with a question in a phone booth and it became a life.

I spent so many weekends at their house growing up. We’d eat dinner, go to Barnes & Noble (where I always picked out a Nancy Drew), grab ice cream, and then curl up with our books. I like to think that’s where my love for reading started. It was something they loved, so I wanted to love it too. Looking back, those nights feel like little lessons in love.

My next novel How to Find Love in the Cereal Aisle is a rom-com but it’s also about believing in love again when it’s easier not to. It’s about doubt and disappointment and still taking the risk anyway. And I can’t think of two people who remind me what that kind of hope looks like more than my grandparents.

So I dedicated it to them.

For my grandparents, whose 60-year love story keeps me believing in happily ever afters.

How to Find Love in the Cereal Aisle is set to release summer 2026 and isn’t available for pre-order *yet* but you can subscribe or follow me on social media (@alissaderogatis) to be the first to know when it is!

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PS: My debut novel, Call It What You Want, is available to order here. I appreciate your time and support more than you know! ILYSM <3

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