Grandpa Who Makes His Wife Breakfast Every Day Always Includes One Sweet Little Gift
True love is in the details.
bbernard | Shutterstock They say it’s the small things that matter most in a relationship. One older couple showed just how true that statement is.
A grandpa who makes his wife breakfast every day always includes a sweet little gift of love.
Their granddaughter, Anna, shared their adorable ritual with the world, setting a new standard for relationship goals.
Anna filmed her grandma and grandpa sitting in chairs side by side as her grandma swiped through her phone and her grandpa peeled an orange.
“Every night, my grandpa sets up my grandma’s breakfast,” she explained. “He cuts an orange heart out of the orange peel, and she dries them out and saves them.”
She showed off a long line of large glass jars on top of their kitchen cupboards. Each jar was full of orange peel hearts.
“They have even more jars of hearts at their other apartment,” Anna said, remarking that they’ve been married for over 40 years.
Ysbrand Cosijn | Shutterstock
According to data sourced from the 2018 U.S. Census, the median duration of first marriages was 21 years. The median duration of second marriages was 17 years, and the median duration of third marriages or higher was 13 years.
Forty-one percent of married couples reached their 25th wedding anniversary, yet only 8% made it to their 50th anniversary, highlighting how rare it is to stay in a marriage for over 40 years, as these grandparents have done.
The 40th wedding anniversary is traditionally called the “Ruby Anniversary.” According to the wedding website The Knot, rubies represent a flame that never goes out. It’s everlasting, much like the love shared by a couple who have been married for four decades.
Rubies also bring good fortune, protection, and courage, all of which are necessary for a lasting relationship.
It’s clear that the grandparents’ love is still going strong, captured by the care they show each other.
That the grandpa preps breakfast for his wife so that she has one less thing to think about each day is a small yet tangible act of love, compounded by his thoughtful, extra little something: The orange peel heart.
That the grandma saves every orange peel heart he’s made for her is an act of love, too.
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The grandparents’ orange peel ritual captured the internet’s, ahem, heart, with 1.6 million people liking the post on TikTok.
Many people wrote in the comments that the grandpa has fully mastered the orange peel theory of relationships with his continued devotion to prepping the fruit for his wife each night.
The outpouring of attention the orange peel hearts garnered proves how deeply moving something so small can be and how hungry people are to see acts of love and kindness in the world.
As one woman put it, the grandparents “Casually show us a lifetime of love beautifully displayed in cute jars.”
True romance is often thought of as a compilation of grand, sweeping gestures, yet as these grandparents demonstrated, it’s so much more than lavish surprises. True romance is carried in the everyday ways we show up the people we love.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture and all things to do with the entertainment industry.