MODERN DAY LOVE STORY

One of our residents passed away recently and this was the obituary that her husband placed in the paper. It made me emotional reading it, partly because I knew her, and partly because it will just make you emotional. He would faithfully come every single day and visit her. One day I hope to feel this way about someone:

EMMA STILWELL This is not an obituary to notify everyone that a person has died, it is instead a tribute to the best person I ever knew in my nearly 85 years on Earth. Emma Mae Stilwell, Mae as she preferred to be called, was born Oct. 2, 1922 and passed into Heaven May 20, 2011. She was the third child of 12, born into a very large, very poor, and extremely dysfunctional family. Her older sister was sent to live with her grandparents, leaving Mae as the eldest daughter at home. As a young child, when her mother produced a new baby almost annually, the midwife would hand the baby to Mae and was told to go clean it up. After her second grade in school at the age of eight, her father gave her to a couple to live with, that he said he owed a favor. She had to tend to their three children, do housework, and any other chores they might find for her. The youngest child was a girl with epilepsy, and they showed her how to put a wooden spoon or paddle in her mouth when she had a seizure, so she wouldn't bite her tongue off. Quite a life for an eight year old. The only plus was that they sent her to a nice school where she started to learn acrobatics, which she loved. After one year there, her father decided that she was being abused, and took her back home. She completed grades four through six in school, and then her father removed her from school at the age of 12, and sent her to an Italian couple to work for $5.00 a week, and she had to pay him the bulk of the money. She said they were good to her in many ways, and she was taught how to cook. I would put her spaghetti sauce far ahead of any Italian restaurant I ever ate in. She worked there for a number of years. I met Mae by a God given miracle. My first wife walked out on me one night, and left me with my twin daughters who were less than three years old. I was young, hadn't any money, and had no idea what to do. My father (who was a saint), told me to advertise in the newspaper for someone to be a live in Nanny for a motherless home, and he offered to pay them $25.00 a week. It sounds crazy now, but that was 1952. I advertised and must have had 75 calls. Some were not interested, but many were. I interviewed several and chose Mae for the job. She was just wonderful from day one. The children loved her, and she in turn loved them dearly. It was strictly a business relationship for nearly a year, but then we fell in love, and here it's now 2011. I'm not real religious, but I'm either the luckiest person that ever lived, or God stepped in and sent me the most wonderful person that ever lived. It is almost impossible to imagine how much I miss her. There was never an easier person to get along with than Mae. Whatever I wanted to do was just perfect for her too. I truly believe, that if God gave everyone alive one wish, many would choose wealth, many health, a long life, and all kinds of wishes, but if he gave Mae that wish, she would have chosen, "To make "Harry" happy, and for him to love me." I had the best. She wasn't educated, but she had higher morals, ethics, and honesty than anyone I ever knew. My only hope is for God to not keep me around very much longer, and send me to be with her. I'm not sure that I deserve to go to Heaven to be with her, but if I do, I surely can't wait to be with my darling again. - Your devoted husband, Harry