On Bruce Linton Hager’s first date with Florence Leggett Buchanan in February 2018, he thought “everything was stacked against us,” Mr. Hager said. They met at Michael Jordan’s Steak House NYC in Grand Central Terminal, which has since closed. “Eighties music was blasting out of the bar,” he said. “There was a flash mob downstairs. We had to practically shout at each other, it was so loud.”
But in the midst of all the noise, crowds and confusion, they found out they had something tragic in common: Both their mothers had died by suicide 50 years ago, six weeks apart.
The two had matched on Bumble that January, and Mr. Hager, 69, had always made a practice of pushing past small talk in hopes of finding a real connection with people he met over dating apps. So when he mentioned over dinner that he had grown up in Greenwich, Conn., where “things hadn’t gone well,” Ms. Buchanan was listening. “When I was 14, in July 1968, my mother took her own life,” Mr. Hager told her.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
Ms. Buchanan, 68, asked that he repeat what he had said, though she had heard him. “I was so shocked I needed to buy myself a few seconds,” she said. Then she told him that when she was 13 — in London, her hometown — her mother died by suicide in June 1968.
That night, they left the restaurant with what Mr. Hager called a “a chill of serendipity.” Ms. Buchanan felt a frisson of energy, too. “We were instantly connected,” she said.
Ms. Buchanan and Mr. Hager live in the financial district in Manhattan. She works as a freelance marketing director, creative director and filmmaker. In July, Mr. Hager, who holds a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from Connecticut College, retired from the accounting firm KPMG as a marketing director and recently finished writing a novel about the 1987 stock market crash.
Both are divorced. Ms. Buchanan’s first marriage ended in 1985; the second in 2007. Mr. Hager’s first marriage ended in 2006. Ms. Buchanan has two children: Harrison Spelman, 30, and Octavia Spelman, 28. Mr. Hager’s son, Eric Hager, died last year by suicide. He was 27. His daughter, Zoe Hager, is 25.
When the two first met, Mr. Hager was still living in Montclair, N.J., where his children grew up. “All the way home, I was thinking, this is incredible — to meet someone who’s gone through the same thing I experienced,” he said. “I wanted to know all about this person.”
On their next few dates that winter, more coincidences surfaced, including a wedding they both attended in the ’90s with their spouses at the time. Two dates in, Ms. Buchanan started ignoring Bumble. In August 2019, she invited him to move in.
“I was madly in love, we were completing each other’s sentences, and I understood that she wanted to be in New York more than I wanted to be in Montclair,” Mr. Hager said. He sold his house and a lot of his belongings. By the time the Covid-19 pandemic began, the couple had established their compatibility as life partners.
On Feb. 17, 2022, Mr. Hager proposed over coffee in bed with a tourmaline Toi Et Moi ring. Ms. Buchanan’s acceptance wasn’t as straightforward as either one of them would have liked. He thought the ring alone, without uttering the words “will you marry me,” would signal his intention. She, not entirely sure, had to ask. His confirmation and her “yes” defused a worrying moment for both of them.
They were planning a wedding for 2022 when Eric died suddenly in June. He was living with roommates, including Ms. Buchanan’s son, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “When you’re the son of a mother who has taken her own life, you think you know all the signs to look for,” Mr. Hager said, adding that Eric “was very closed” about his depression. Though Ms. Buchanan’s support has carried him through his ongoing grief, last year became “a time to mourn, not a time to get married,” Mr. Hager said.
The couple felt Eric’s absence keenly when they wed on Sept. 15 in an intimate ceremony led by Yanfang Chen, an officiant at the Manhattan City Clerk’s office. Mr. Spelman served as a witness; the couple’s daughters and Ms. Buchanan’s sister, Emily Buchanan, were also present.
The following day, they celebrated with 90 friends and family at North Cove Marina in Manhattan, where the couple and their children — clad in work boots and life jackets — arrived on a working tugboat. Later, the entourage made its way to Le Bar at the French food halls of Le District, where the couple’s friends bestowed three ceremonial blessings: one Catholic, one Jewish and one Deeksha (or oneness) blessing.
After the final wedding toasts, the couple thanked their mothers for the gift of each other. “We do credit our mothers for bringing us together,” Mr. Hager said. In an afterlife both envision, Ms. Buchanan said, “they’re probably clinking teacups.”
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
