The recent passing of first lady Rosalynn Carter also brings to a close the 77-year love story with husband former President Jimmy Carter.
It was a model marriage in the sense that they regarded each other as equals partners who clearly adored each other.
When Mrs. Carter’s coffin was moved to the Carter Center in preparation for the coming tributes, it was reported Mr. Carter also slept there, a few feet away.
“He never wants to be very far from her,” Paige Smith, the Carter Center’s CEO, said.
Thursday, I visited with Dr. Earl Walter and Sally Huskey to gain their insights on losing a spouse.
These are their stories.
Dr. Earl Walter
Earl and Linda Walter were married for 17 “wonderful” years, beginning in 1996.
“We were each other’s soul mates,” he said. “Every day, we told each other we loved each other.”
As a physician, Earl’s relationship with Linda had more dimensions than most relationships.
A handful of years into their marriage, Earl discovered Linda had a progressive form of leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
“I remember seeing the blood count and knew immediately it was leukemia,” he said.
“I came home and told her and began to cry.”
It was only after Linda was put on an experimental drug that the cancer abated.
A decade later, Linda was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
“That’s when we discovered Linda had BRCA I,” a genetic disposition to breast and ovarian cancer.
“We didn’t know it before, because her mother had had a hysterectomy,” he said, referring to Pat Shields, age 95, who lives just around the corner from Earl.
Surgery and chemotherapy for the cancer once again gave Linda a reprieve for several years, only to have it return in the spring of 2013.
This time, the specialists were not optimistic.
Within weeks, Earl retired at age 71 from a 40-year practice as a doctor of osteopathy, the last 37 years with Iola Family Practice, to become Linda’s full time caretaker.
Again, Earl’s medical knowledge told him things they didn’t want to know.
“I knew she wasn’t going to make it but couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t say ‘honey, you’re not going to make it.’”
His only regret today is that he didn’t retire earlier.
“I regret I didn’t have time with her during retirement, where we could have maybe done some more things together.”
Over the months Linda’s health deteriorated.
“For quite a while she was able to do things. Thankfully, she didn’t experience pain. The trouble was that she couldn’t eat.”
Earl stayed with her every day, all day.
“I was lucky to be where I was with who I was,” he said.
He’d use the opportunity for visiting family members to take a quick walk around the golf course.
By that fall, “she gave up on the chemotherapy” and was eventually confined to bed.
“Sometimes we didn’t know what to say to each other,” he recalled. “She would say, ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ and I’d tell her there’s no way she would ever leave me. And it’s true,” he says as he taps his chest. “She’s right here today. She was the love of my life.”
Two weeks before her death, Earl requested home health aides to assist in her care.
She died on Dec. 22, 2013, at age 66.
“It was a Sunday afternoon. I called the kids to come over. Larry (Macha, Linda’s first husband) came.”
DEATH wasn’t new to Earl.
“But it’s different when you’re dealing with other people. You can separate yourself from it. Not that you don’t feel compassion, but you’re not in the middle of it,” he said.
Linda’s death overwhelmed Earl with grief.
“For two years, I sobbed out loud in this house. But never outside, never in front of anybody.”
Life lost its meaning.
“I put a DNR — do not resuscitate — on myself,” he said. “I didn’t care whether I lived or died.”
Oddly enough, sleep wasn’t a problem.
“It was very strange, but I would concentrate on a black box and somehow, I would go to sleep. I focused on the box so I couldn’t think of her. It’s almost like something came there to help me.”
“I didn’t have any problem sleeping, I just had trouble living.”
“Some days I’d be driving down the street and I’d see the empty seat beside me, and I’d say, ‘Where’s my Linda?’ Why am I even doing this?”
“But I knew this was a pain I had to go through. And I’m still going through it. I miss her every day, multiple times a day.”
Slowly, Earl, now 81, emerged from the depths of grief.
“I knew I was lucky to have had what I had with Linda. “I used to come home for lunch every day, even if I only had 10 minutes. I’d race home just to see her. And the days I couldn’t make that work, she’d bring me a sandwich.”
“My friends and family would tell me they’d never seen me so happy.”
Earl married an angel, he said.
“She was everyone’s best friend, that’s how nice she was,” he said.
Earl credits his and Linda’s children, the grandchildren and a close network of friends and their shared love of golf for pulling him through.
“I don’t know if the guys were just being generous or if they really liked me, but they helped me tremendously by inviting me to dinner or to play golf. It meant a lot to me. It still does.”
Most days of the week he has scheduled engagements of one sort or another with his friends and family.
Though he no longer has an active practice, medicine remains a passion. Practicing medicine “was such an honor,” he said.
“I tell my kids don’t worry about what happens to me. I have had the most wonderful life. I had the best wife in the world. I had an honorable profession. I don’t know what else I could ask for.”
Sally Huskey
Sally first met Bob as a fellow student at William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo.
He was a Navy man, veteran of the Korean War, five years her senior with a head full of black hair. Dashingly handsome.
It was a first impression she’ll never forget.
“In my mind’s eye, that’s still how I see him. He never looked any different to me. Of course, he changed. But that’s how I’ve always pictured him,” she said.
They married their senior year.
They eventually made their way to Iola when Bob partnered with Roy Singer of Hoyt, Kan., to open an IGA grocery store here.
The business was also a partnership between the young couple.
“On Sunday nights he’d bring the books out and we’d sit at our kitchen table and figure out the payroll and write the checks.
“We enjoyed those times together.”
And when staffing was short, Sally would show up.
“It wasn’t the thrill of my life to wrap meat, but oh well.”
The couple later bought out Singer’s shares in the store.
They also adopted four children, and became involved in community and civic affairs. Bob served as a county commissioner. They sang in community choirs.
“He was a real partner,” she said. “He shared everything with me that was going on at the store. He came home for lunch every day.
“He was pretty much selfless when it came to me. He was always interested in what I enjoyed. I always felt well cared for.”
Life’s trajectory seemed very satisfactorily set.
Then at age 66, Bob suffered a stroke, paralyzing the right side of his body. Though he regained the ability to walk, he could never speak again or use his right hand or arm.
The disability, of course, affected them both.
Sally described her husband as “gregarious. Much more so than I ever was.”
“But after the stroke, he didn’t like to do much. We never went out to eat because I had to cut his food for him,” Sally said.
His inability to communicate changed their social lives.
“Who wants to have his wife speak for him?”
“We learned to communicate through our eyes,” she said. After 40-plus years of marriage, “I knew what he wanted.”
“The one word he managed to say was ‘coffee,” because he loved to have coffee,” she remembered with a smile.
“And he never lost his ability to think,” she said, and maintained a daily habit of reading the news.
“We still took the Kansas City paper, the Wall Street Journal and the Register. His reading was slower, but I know he was understanding things because he would often motion for me to come over and read an article.”
Bob died at age 73 from an embolism, an obstructed blood vessel, in 1995.
Sally, now 89, remembers the night clearly.
Earlier that evening she had invited Bob to see a movie about World War II code breakers with her and friend Mary Lou Chard.
“I knew that would really interest him, but he shook his head no, and waved me away, indicating that I should go ahead.”
When she returned, their dog lay asleep on the living room floor.
“He was Bob’s constant buddy, so I wondered where he could be.”
Sally found him on their bed, with only his shoes removed.
“I feel very certain Bob didn’t cry out because the dog wasn’t upset. Good for him,” she said of her husband’s apparently quick passing.
But oh, his death was a shock.
“People would say that after seven years the way he lived; it was probably a blessing. For seven years, we had lived the life of old people.
“But it wasn’t a blessing for me.”
Sally threw herself into her library work, her music, and became a hospice volunteer. And still came home to an empty house.
Huskey said her German heritage taught her as a young girl to “clench my teeth to get through things.”
So after Bob died, “When I was done clenching my teeth to get through the day, I’d throw myself on the bed and cry and cry and cry.”
She remembers one fateful day when her friend Mary Boyd appeared at her door.
“She said, ‘I have something for you. It’ll make you cry, but it’s good for you,’” and handed her a CD of songs.
“She was right. All that crying was good for me. You have to let those tears wash away the hurt.”
As for returning to normal, “I suppose it happened hours at a time,” when distracted by work, friends, or other activities.
It’s been 23 years since Bob’s passing. Though his absence created a gaping hole, life continues to fill the gaps.
