I’m a sucker for love and love stories. As the month of February rolls on, the season of love inspired me to search for the perfect love story, and I found it — in the home of Glenroy ‘Roy’ Bodden and Reva Ritch-Bodden who are celebrating 69 years of marriage this year.
I recently sat down with the couple, both with roots in Cayman Brac, at their beautiful home to reflect on their almost seven decades together, the power of love that endures over time, and to hear their words of wisdom on how to build a lasting marriage. This is a story for the ages.
For Roy, 88, and Reva, 87, their journey has been filled with love and fond memories.
Their love story began when they were young kids.
Roy first met Reva Yvonne Ritch in Kingston, Jamaica, where he spent the first 12 years of his life.
Only 11 months apart, Roy was 6 at the time of his first encounter with 5-year-old Reva, the eldest daughter of Captain Martin Ritch of Cayman Brac and Ivy Maude Myers-Foster of German and Irish descent. The two would become inseparable.
“We were always together. From the time we were children, we always knew each other,” Roy told the Cayman Compass.
“In 1942, my family moved next door to her family at 34 Belmont Road [in Kingston]. Together, we went to church and school. We played together, and were each other’s best friends. But, of course, at times, we had our childhood disagreements,” he said.
Letters from the heart
Roy and his family moved to the United States in 1948, but he and Reva stayed in touch through writing letters and sending photographs to each other.
“We more or less grew up writing each other, every week, and we’d write about general stuff,” he said.
They still have the letters in a keepsake box inside their home.
In 2022, Roy penned his life story in a book titled, ‘My Life in a Conch Shell’, with many mentions of the “girl he grew to love”. In the chapter ‘Reva, Again’, Roy wrote about the moment he declared his love for her:
“As the year came to an end, I wrote to Reva and told her something I’d never told her before … I was in love with her. How in the world could I be in love with a girl I hadn’t seen for over five and a half years, and also since she was 11 years old? But, through letters, we just grew up knowing each other. We wrote each other almost weekly, telling of our everyday events, no matter how trivial. I have often said that if I had remained in Jamaica, I just might not have fallen in love with Reva because of us being so close to each other.
“But there’s an old saying, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ and in our case, it is, without a doubt, a very, very true saying. Reva wrote me in the affirmative that she felt the same about me. She was now indeed ‘My Sweet Sixteen’ as the old song goes. Wow, I was riding on cloud nine! But now I was yearning to see her even more.”
Sealing the deal
In 1952, the handwritten letters of teenage love were sealed with a visit from Roy to Reva’s home on his return to Jamaica.
“Someone knocked at my door and when I checked to see who it was … it was Roy standing there,” Reva said.
“It was just, for a moment, time stood still,” Roy said, adding, “She came running out to the gate. She opened it and I got in and she said to me, I’ll never forget, ‘Is it really you?’
“The last time we saw each other, we were 11, 12 years old.”
Their long-lasting love story has blossomed ever since.
The couple tied the knot in December 1956 at Constant Spring Road Church of God in Jamaica. They were the first couple to get married there.
“There was a lot of people at the wedding. It was overcrowded. We had a breakfast and brunch that day,” said the couple, who often complete each other’s sentences, as they held hands while sharing their story with the Compass.
They welcomed two children, Rosemarie and Roger. Through much travel and living abroad over the years, they eventually planted their feet on Grand Cayman.
‘He’s always there’
Reva says what she loves most about her husband of 69 years is, “He’s always there for me … for us. I’m here, he’s not well, but I’m here for him. We’re both not well, but we have to look out for each other.”
She added her husband, a singer, songwriter, and musician, serenades her often.
Roy said, “I enjoy being there with her, especially here, now in our latter years. I just enjoy more and more being with her … I just can’t get enough of her.”
Every love story is not without its challenges. Reva said, like most marriages, there were times when things weren’t ideal.
“We fussed. We had children and we fussed over those two children. I’m not going to say it was a perfect marriage,” she said.
When asked the secret to their long and happy marriage, the couple responded that they both “have the Lord in our lives. That’s the main thing.”
“I think the Lord brought us together and kept us together,” Reva added.
Another secret in keeping their love alive, Roy said, is that there’s “not a day that goes by that I don’t tell her I love her. Not that she needs to be reminded, but I tell her.”
Reva said, “At night, I go and cover him up in the bed … and I kiss him, I say goodnight, I go to my side of the bed at night, and we pray together every night.”
Roy chuckled as he added, “Plus a couple of times during the day.”
In this season of love, the couple also advised, “You have to compromise with each other. We’re not perfect. If people would compromise and pray about their marriage, more people would stay together.”
As the interview ended, with the couple hand-in-hand, a rather emotional Roy began singing their favourite song, ‘We Could’. With tears in her eyes, Reva joined in.
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