Legacy Writing 365:5

Winnie and Robert–so young here, but when I knew them, they were old. They were tall and lean, both of them, and he was only a little stooped. They both had beautiful white hair. Although they were quiet, they were favorites of mine because they both always had a smile in their eyes. Truly, though, what endeared them to me was how they were with each other. She never needed a sweater that he wasn’t there to gently drop one on her shoulders. He never wanted for something cool to drink, because she put a glass next to him before he could ask. Whenever our large extended family was together, they would laugh at all the stories with the rest of us, but sooner or later they’d go for a little walk, hand in hand, quietly continuing a conversation that had begun more than fifty years earlier.

Winnie–Winifred–was the oldest of twelve children. Fourteen, really, but one was born dead and another died in infancy. My mother was the youngest of those fourteen. When Mother saw how I watched her oldest sister and Robert, she told me their story. They fell in love, and when Winnie was eighteen, Robert asked my grandparents for her hand in marriage. But my grandmother was pregnant with Uncle John. She said Winnie couldn’t be spared; she had to take her mother’s place supervising the house and the other children until after the baby was born. Robert promised that if they were allowed to marry, he would wait as long as necessary before setting up household with her. My grandparents finally agreed; Winnie and Robert were married in June of 1921. Uncle John was born in August. I don’t know when Winnie was finally able to go home to her husband, but as promised, he waited until then for a wedding night with his bride.

When Winnie died in Tupelo on an August day at age seventy-four, we could all see that Robert had lost half of his soul. The smile was gone from his eyes. No one was surprised when he died, too, before the year was over. My mother said Robert simply had no interest in living in a world without his Winnie.