Who could not be moved by the Valentine's Day message Reg Dyett put in The Canberra Times' classifieds on Friday to his wife Naysin:
"For 20 years of happiness and love with much more to come. From your 90-year-old Valentine".
Cue the sighs.
Reg, 90, and Naysin,86, live happily in Braddon. They have just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary.
They always mark Valentine's Day. There was the classifieds ad. Naysin received red roses from Reg. She makes him a special dinner.
Reg was a little shocked more people didn't make a declaration of love in the classifieds on Valentine's Day.
"That upset me a bit. I was a bit sad," he said.
"But it may not be sad. These days, Valentines would communicate in other ways. I hope so. All may be saved for romance."
The couple met in 1999 at a mutual friend's child's birthday.
"I just thought she was a charming lady, gentle and understanding. And good at gardening!" Reg said. "She's boss of the garden, I'm boss of the wash."
Naysin, originally a refugee to Australia from Cambodia, was also taken with Reg and his kind ways.
"He's a very good man and he cares for me," she said.
They each had four children from their previous marriages. They met several years after Reg's wife Elizabeth died.
The road to true love was not easy.
Reg was Catholic; Naysin raised a Buddhist. She had been enslaved in a labour camp in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge where she was baptised into the Uniting Church. She escaped the camp on a bicycle, fleeing to safety in Thailand.
When she and Reg went to marry, the Catholic Church wanted them to appeal to Rome to get the green-light until then Bishop Pat Power intervened and cleared the way. And it has been happy ever after.
Reg said the secret to a happy marriage was clear.
"Patience and respect for the other's views," he said with a gentle smile.
