As we were about to take off, the woman beside me was struggling with her phone.
She gave me a frantic look and said, “I had a stroke last September. Can you help me?”
To my left a gentleman leaned over and said, “She should give up the thing.”
Upon takeoff, his phone rang.
“You’re no better,” I quipped.
He gave me a sheepish smile.
What I envisioned as a chance to catch up on some reading from Nashville to Kansas City last weekend turned into an hour-long marriage encounter session. Sometimes I served as the buffer between the couple who clearly had chosen to take their chances with a stranger in the middle seat rather than sit side by side.
“Before that stroke she was a different person. She used to be an angel,” he barked.
Time stood still before he added, “She’s still an angel. Just a different kind of angel.”
As the flight wore on I could see that after 65 years of marriage, their life stories had melded into one. They were no strangers to challenge.
The stroke had left the woman’s speech impeded. More than anything else, it required patience.
Not his strong suit.
Her voice also was barely above a whisper — a trial in the best of circumstances for her hearing-impaired husband.
The stroke had affected her short-term memory, she said.
They also had that in common, I thought.
Three separate times the husband recalled the day he asked her father for her hand. By the time we landed I was ready with a prompt whenever he paused.
“Even though I was only 18, I told him I could provide for her. I had a house, a car and a good job.
“He was a stubborn cuss. When I came back to her house that evening I told him this was the third and last time I was going to ask. He grumbled, ‘I reckon I won’t get any better offer,’ and that was that. I hopped in the car and drove off knowing she was to be mine.”
With every retelling she beamed.
“She’s the original Coal Miner’s Daughter,” he said of his child bride of 15. “Her daddy only had a third-grade education.”
Look at her now, he seemed to say.
The further she lapsed into silence, the more voluble he became.
