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My mother was only fourteen years old when my father saw her walking down the street and fell in love with her with all of his being and until the end of time.
Life had not been easy for my mom. Her mother died of TB at age twenty-eight, leaving my eleven year old mother to help her father run the farm and raise her five year old brother and one year old sister. No longer able to attend school, she told of days spent in the fields with a hoe in her hands and a baby on her hip.
This young girl was forced to grow up much too soon and without the love and guidance of a mother. Her father, a very devout man, did the best he could, but times were hard, and there was little time to devote to a young girl doing her best in a sad and difficult situation.
There was little money for anything other than necessities, but, if she had done her chores and cared for the little ones all week, my mother was given a nickel on Saturdays and allowed to go to town to visit the candy store. It was on one of these outings that my father first saw my mother. She was walking down the street with her cousin, excitedly talking about the purchase she would make. According to my father, she had a smile on her face, light in her eyes and was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
My father was the next to last child in a family of sixteen children - twelve of whom reached adulthood. He had to drop out of school in the eighth grade to help on the farm. At the time he met my mother, he was nineteen years old and had taken the car to town to get supplies for the family. He had no idea how his life would change that day, but he often said it was the luckiest day of his life.
My parents married when she was fifteen, and he was twenty. They lived on a farm with his parents. Three years later, I was born in the house where my father had been born and lived his entire life.
There are many things that could be told about their life together - living through WWII, raising three children, doing whatever they could to make ends meet when times were hard. Their love and devotion to each other got them through times that might have ended marriages not based on such love.
I want to skip ahead, though, to a time when their love for each other grew even stronger. To a time when, though they were both very ill, they cared for, and about, each other and found comfort in their love. No matter how ill they might feel, they still hugged and said I love you each and every day.
As we got toward the end, it was both difficult and touching to see how much they needed and loved each other. At one point, Mom was on one end of the Cardiac Unit and Dad was on the other. Both were too weak to get out of bed, yet my father insisted on being rolled to Mom's room to visit. He would sit by her bed, hold her hand and tell her how much he loved her and how she would always be his Baby Doll.
When the doctors decided there was nothing more they could do for Mom, they sent her to a place where she could be cared for until she passed away. They thought it would be in a day or two, and it was almost too much to bear to watch Dad's last visit with her. As they were rolling Mom out of the room, we could hear Dad saying he loved her and would see her soon.
Dad died the next day - three days short of their sixty-sixth wedding anniversary. Mom followed him a hundred days later. At the head of my mom's casket was a beautiful vase of red roses with a card that said -To my Baby Doll. I will always love you. I knew Dad would have wanted her to have them.
So, they shared sixty-six years here and taught many of us what marriage and true love were all about. Though they are gone now, I know they are someplace holding hands and saying I love you. It's for sure all of the angels have heard Dad's story about how the most beautiful thing he had ever seen became his Baby Doll for sixty-six years, plus Eternity.
Patricia Grace is a retired teacher, mother of four and grandmother of nine. She has a BS in Psychology and an MS in Early Childhood Education. Many of her stories were "field tested" on her kids, grandkids and students. Although she enjoys writing in many different areas, her favorite is writing for young children. She, especially, likes to write stories that teach a lesson through the use of animals and subjects that appeal to very young readers. Her primary reward for the writing is the way small faces light up when they "get" the point of the story.
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Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed reading a true love story. They had their problems like the rest of us, but not being together was never an option. As old age and ill health took over, their love seemed to increase. It was amazing to watch and be a part of.
Beautiful love story Patricia. Thank you for sharing. It made me very teary eyed. I even thought of the Notebook while reading. Excellent example, your parents were for showing love. God bless you
Thank you so much for the kind words. Nicholas Sparks is my favorite author. To have my work remind you of his is a supreme compliment. I give my parents the credit for being such an inspiration.
Thank you so much. There were many things that could have caused my parents to decide to give up at times. They went through a lot together. They both said that being apart from each other was never an option. There are many who have told me they use my parents as an example of how to love. They were never wealthy, but they left the world a better place for having loved each other.
This story reminded me a lot of my grandparents, always together, always in love, hand in hand to the end...or the begining of eternity. Congrats on another great piece of writing and story telling!
If you had grandparents who were like my parents, you were blessed to know the feeling of unconditional love- for each other and for you.
Thank you for your kind words about my story. It was easy to write about people who made the world a better place by sharing their love for each other. I am glad I got to be a part of their lives.
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