What a Difference a Day Makes: From widows' groups online to lockdown love-affair

Business woman Ezara Ahern-Easter tells Helen O’Callaghan how Covid lockdowns provided the perfect circumstances for her to forge a deep relationship with a man, 4,000 miles away, who would become her husband.

Ezara Ahern Easter

Middke of the pandemic, living in the UK, I’d been furloughed from the company I worked for, had loads of time to potter around.

One afternoon, June 10, 2020, my phone pinged — a Facebook message from the founder of a widows’ group I was in, he’d created this dark humour group for people who’d lost their spouses.

The message: “I’ve been curious about you for a while, tell me about yourself.” I thought, ‘That’s a bit strange from someone I don’t really know.’ I messaged back: “Hi Gabe, lovely to hear from you — what would you like to know?”

We began chatting, started exchanging stories of our experiences with widowhood, and uncovered more about each other. He spoke about losing his wife, being a single dad to a six-year-old. We got to chatting about life, things we found funny.

From that initial message, we started to talk, text every day. We’d speak about our day, what was going on in the world. We’d have deep dives, conversations about anything really. Nothing romantic — we were living 4,000 miles apart, six-hour time difference. I wasn’t thinking, ‘When are we going on a date?’

Bit by bit, as we became more emotionally connected, he wrote me a letter — such a beautiful letter, hand-written with fountain pen on special paper, a wax-sealed letter. We’d had a running joke about how people didn’t do romantic gestures any more.

In it, he said he understood the big distance between us, that it was a big wild card, but… he’d love to meet me at some point, what’s the worst that could happen? It was a very big declaration that he was into me.

His letter took my breath away. I felt seen. I wrote him a letter. I was so heightened in all the emotion.

Lila, Gabe and Ezara Ahern Easter. Picture: Jim Coughlan.

We continued speaking online, though we didn’t talk of our sending or receiving of letters. One day, maybe in October, he asked what I was doing at the start of November, and could he come and see me.

I really had to suppress the logic: ‘This is crazy, he’s a stranger, you don’t know him.’ But also: ‘Don’t mess this up, everything has gone so well so far, it feels right.’ The feeling felt right. I said ‘yes’.

The logistics during covid: he’d spend three weeks — quarantine in an Airbnb for two, then spend one week with me. I was concerned — somebody flying that distance to meet me, then spending two weeks by themselves, completely isolated. I asked would he quarantine in my house. He asked was I sure; I said yes.

He arrived. There was this real awkwardness for about two minutes… and then, ‘Oh, actually, I know you, you’re that person I’ve been speaking to for months, you’re that guy.’

On the couch, he sat really close — Irish people aren’t very forward in romance, Americans are. After a while, he put his arm around me, feeling his hand on my shoulder, like my shoulder was on fire.

I’d told one friend he was coming. She’d said: “Can you message to let me know he’s not an axe murderer?” And I forgot. And she messaged, ‘Hello?’

We had so much fun together. Being in each other’s company felt really easy, amazing. Almost instantaneously, we fell into domesticity, cooking for each other, and he cut my grass one day.

Trying to understand was there a romantic connection outside of the virtual world, it was a tremendously intense two weeks.

The second week was hit-and-miss; we were getting used to each other’s quirks too. It was a gorgeous time. We did movie nights, everything people did in covid — we did all that.

When he left, I was heartbroken, like part of me had left. I knew this was going somewhere new and different. I’d been single for five years since losing my late partner. I knew this was something special; he felt the same.

He visited again, March 2021, Easter together. My lease came to an end, I put my stuff in storage. We flew to Mexico, where we stayed for two weeks, then to Memphis. We went to Gabe’s house, I met his daughter Lila — a dote. I stayed six weeks, it was brilliant.

Long distance is romantic for the first year. Then it becomes sad, empty — you want your person with you. It’s financially difficult. We decided to elope, married in Nashville, November 2022.

Ezara Ahern-Easter.

It could easily have not happened, 100%, if I’d listened to that inner critic saying, ‘This is madness.’ What I kept telling myself: ‘This feels good, keep going until it stops feeling good.’ Without covid, lockdown, I wouldn’t have been able to give as much time speaking to somebody six hours behind me. Social life would have been in-person, whereas it felt normal to have Zoom dates — it was how everything else was happening.

Gabe and Lila moved to Ireland in March 2023. We’ve been (mostly!) happily living together since. In 2024, we went into business together.

I feel very grateful. When you’ve lost somebody you were going to spend your life with, like we did, you feel you’ll never get that special relationship again, that nothing will ever feel as good as that.

For us, being with each other feels just as good. There’s so much gratitude, joy, in loving post-loss, when it’s right.

• Ezara and Gabe run Twelve South Creative, helping business owners and founders understand and navigate PR and communications. From done-for-you PR to strategic coaching and mentoring, they help businesses show up, speak up. Visit twelvesouthcreative.ie.