2 Widows Unexpectedly Find Love in Different Countries, Despite Not Speaking the Same Language (Exclusive)

“She took my heart away,” Dwight Mosberg, from California, says of his Italian bride, Gina Ceccarelli

From left, Dwight Moberg and Gina Ceccarelli seal their love with a kiss during their wedding last summer.Credit : courtesy of Zelalem Aychiluhim, Sunset Video Production

It’s hard enough to find true love, but to discover it twice in one lifetime?

The notion seemed impossible to widowed octogenarians Dwight Moberg, who lived in Richmond, Calif., and Gina Ceccarelli, of Rome. Both were living solitary lives continents apart — without even a shared language.

But, as the 89-year-old Moberg tells PEOPLE, “In our hearts, we both speak the same language.”

Fate conspired to bring them together in an unlikely series of events: The couple, who celebrated their first wedding anniversary on July 12, tell PEOPLE they’d each had long, happy marriages. They never expected romance to come knocking again at their door.

And then Ceccarelli, 82, was coaxed into coming to America for a visit by a long-lost friend, who also happened to be Moberg’s neighbor. Moberg heard the neighbor, Menbere Aklilu, speak of Ceccarelli’s kindness to her when she was escaping a past, abusive relationship.

When he saw the elegant Italian beauty last year in California, he was smitten.

From left, Gina Ceccarelli and Dwight Moberg.courtesy of Zelalem Aychiluhim, Sunset Video Production

“She took my heart away,” Moberg says. “Seeing her next door and how friendly she was to us, and then later on we went walking every morning together … it just sort of multiplied things from that point on.”

Their matchmaker, Aklilu, was repaying a kindness by Ceccarelli from many years ago.

Her life has been filled with adventures, heartache, blessings and love. The child of rape, she grew up in Ethiopia, raised by a half-brother after their mom was murdered by a local policeman.

Seeking a new life as an actress, Aklilu married and moved to Rome to pursue her dreams.

But once there, she realized her husband was an abuser and, then a pregnant young woman, she fled to a shelter days before giving birth to son Christian in 1984. There she found Ceccarelli, a sympathetic worker who would sneak food to her and help in any way she could.

From left, Gina Ceccarelli with her friend Menbere Aklilu.courtesy of Zelalem Aychiluhim, Sunset Video Production

In the ’80s, Aklilu left Italy to find a new life in the United States, going on to become a successful restaurateur, philanthropist and activist. But she never forgot Ceccarelli.

So almost 40 years later — and at the urging of her son — she decided to track the older woman down.

She discovered the widow living in a small town in the mountains, some two hours from Rome, resigned to the fact that she was in her waning days of life. Ceccarelli’s children and her grandchildren were grown, with kids of their own. They visited, but she was largely on her own. Her first husband, Biagio Fochetti, had died after 65 years of marriage.

Then Aklilu appeared.

“How [could] I forget her? I was bringing her dinner every night, my leftover dinner, and hiding it under her bed. I was making a sweater for her baby. I don’t have much, but I was trying to help,” Ceccarelli says. (She spoke PEOPLE via video interview, with Aklilu translating.)

“So immediately when I saw her, she smiles and I remember her.”

Aklilu soon decided a change in scenery was in order. She was determined to get Ceccarelli, who had never been on a plane in her life, to come visit her at her waterfront home in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ceccarelli did not, however, expect their reunion to lead to a complete upheaval in her life.

“I was scared to fly because I had never been on a plane. My husband tried to convince me for 65 years, but I refused,” Ceccarelli says.

She relented, with Aklilu holding her hand, and last year flew for the first time to a strange country. It was there that she met Moberg, who lost his own wife of 65 years, Teresa, in 2023. He also has two sons and a daughter.

Of Teresa, Aklilu says, “She wanted me to look after him [Moberg] when she was gone, and I know she would have wanted him to find love.”

From left, Gina Ceccarelli and Dwight Moberg.courtesy of Zelalem Aychiluhim, Sunset Video Production

As the cliché goes… the two hit it off right away.

Aklilu remembers making dinner for Ceccarelli and Moberg and seeing them hold hands under the table. She left the room and caught them kissing when she returned.

They went on walks, Ceccarelli cooked for Moberg, and they found they were very comfortable in each other’s company.

“We also go out for our walks and so forth, and it has been delightful,” Moberg says.

As for the language barrier? Google Translate, with a speak-to-talk feature, came in handy.

After her initial trip in 2024, Ceccarelli went back home to Italy. But she and Moberg decided they wanted to spend more time together. For a woman who had spent her entire life in one country, and had children and grandchildren there, it was a big decision.

“The flying was one scary thing, but another was leaving my family, my kids, grandkids. But his love convinced me to come here,” Ceccarelli says. “Everything is new — new country, new language, new habits. But I did it because I have a love for him.”

As for when Moberg might start speaking Italian, he has a quick quip: “I have that under control because anything that is asked, my answer is strictly sì. That seems to answer everything and does not cause any conflict.”

And, of course, Ceccarelli speaks the Italian love language of food, another thing that bonded them.

“I’m afraid I’m going to grow to maybe 300 lbs. because she’s an excellent cook and brings all that Italian flavor to the kitchen and our table,” Moberg says.

He says he is picking up small words and has “little flip cards that have Italian messages on them.”

On Sept. 2, the two will take their honeymoon trip — to Italy. Ceccarelli is eager to return and to show her husband around. Moberg has only ever been “as a tourist,” he says.

“It will be totally different. … Now I’ll see what an Italian sees,” he says.

This unexpected romance, he says, has rejuvenated him.

“It’s given me a different perspective on growing old, because growing old doesn’t necessarily mean getting old in your ways,” Moberg says, adding: “Love has fulfilled all the dreams of the aging process.”