CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- Roy Thomas, 90, lost his beloved wife to a stroke about 8 years ago and his world almost stopped turning. "It put me in a downhill mood," he said, but his daughters kept him going.
Barbara Lindsay, 77, lost her beloved husband to ALS at about the same time. "I felt like I had lost the world." She retreated to her home, mourning, for the better part of a year until a friend told her to go out and do what she always loved to do: Dance.
So she went to a dance, and friends told her, "go around the corner, there's a man around there, he's a good man, and teach him how to dance," Barbara recalled. "And I saw two blue eyes and I said, "Do you want to dance?' 'No!' 'Can you dance?' 'No!' 'I said, give me your hand. I'm going to dance.' And we went back and we started dancing."
"I've been dancing ever since," Roy said.
Their love is the stuff of legend at The Crossings at Ironbridge, an assisted-living facility. She helps him get in their long walks. She cooks excellent meals. He provides excellent, faithful, sober companionship and lots of hugs and listens to her Bible readings and prayers. He joins her at church and on the dance floor.
They've never had a cross word in their six or so years together, Barbara said, and both proclaim a love and hunger to be with each other that has literally given them new, strong life.
"You know, it really can make you stay young," said Sherry Matthews, administrator at The Crossings at Ironbridge. "You see that with this couple particularly. Just that power of being with somebody and not being alone."
