Soak up every moment you have with those you love. Because life doesn’t always warn you when it’s about to take a detour.
That's Ed Barry's message.
Two days after his 66th wedding anniversary, his entire existence was toppled when his best friend and wife, Kay, unexpectedly died.
Now, at 90, Ed is just trying to go on. It’s difficult, though, when grief is coursing through your veins. Every moment of every day.
“There were times where I think it was a dream,” Ed said in the kitchen of the Palm Bay home he shared with Kay since 1973. “I just can’t imagine going through life without her. I just can’t.”
Losing your soulmate after almost 70 years will pretty much devastate you, he said.
That’s a situation familiar to the staff of Aging Matters in Brevard, a nonprofit centered on helping the elderly maximize their quality of life while maintaining their independence.
Aging Matters teams yearly with FLORIDA TODAY through the Reaching Out Holiday Fund to provide gifts for seniors who receive Meals on Wheels, dine at Seniors at Lunch sites or use the non-profit's in-home services which can help older citizens.
About 30,000 people 65 or older live alone in Brevard County, many of them in need of those services.
Some, like Ed, are still in the throes of grief and determined to make it on their own.
But many, especially those with health problems of their own, need to ask for help to stay healthy and independent.
“How do you overcome that?” an emotional Ed asks of moving past the death of his wife. “You don’t. Time heals a little bit, but it never heals completely. It never does. Grief — that’s the penalty you pay for love. You don’t love anybody, you don’t have any grief.”
Ed called a FLORIDA TODAY reporter a couple of months ago, wanting to share a letter he’d written to his late wife.
“Half of me is gone forever,” he read as his voice cracked. “My heart is broken…It’s like a boat just drifting aimlessly without a rudder.”
The emotions that spilled from the recent widower are heart-warming and heart-wrenching, all at once. Ed shared his experience with the goal of giving hope to others who are hurting, too.
“It’s heartbreaking to see my dad in so much pain,” said daughter Elizabeth Barry-Steele, 50, of Palm Bay. “I think it’s been a growth experience for all of us. You just never know when something like this is going to happen…I just kind of put my blinders on. You know it’s an inevitable thing, that we’re all going to go someday. (But) it wasn’t in the forefront.”
Now, her dad faces his first holiday season without his love in almost seven decades.
Lifetime of love
Ed walks into the kitchen of his Port Malabar Country Club home, his gait stiffened and slowed by a bad knee. Photos are peppered throughout the house. The Barry family tree includes five children, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. At times, Ed still speaks of Kay in the present tense. His wedding band remains on his finger.
It was 1940 when Ed Barry and Kay (actually, Kathleen Ann) Alty were in the same 10th-grade homeroom class near Boston. At 15 and 14, their exchanges were minimal. After graduation, Kay attended Boston University; Ed served in the Navy during World War II, a presence in Okinawa and Iwo Jima. When he was discharged in May 1946, he returned home. One Saturday night, he attended a dance at the local Elks Club.
In an attempt to get youngsters to mingle, ladies were swept into a circle, clasping hands and facing out. The surrounding circle of men did the same, and both links moved in opposite directions to the sounds of Big Band music. When the music stopped, dancers paired off with the person facing them.
Ed stared into the eyes of Kay Alty. She remembered him from school — he’d always worn suspenders.
“And we’ve been together ever since,” Ed beams.
Except for a two-year-stint at Purdue University, they were.
Kay joined him at Indiana and the couple married on June 25, 1949.
They went on to have five children — Steven, David, Joyce, Kathy and Elizabeth. They moved around, living in Massachusetts, New York and Washington D.C. A marketing job (at now-Harris Corp.) for Ed brought the family to Palm Bay in 1972.
Except for Ed’s business travel, they were inseparable. They attended Mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. A former bookkeeper, Kay stayed home to raise the kids.
“We were compatible in many things,” Ed said of their marital success.
They agreed on “core values” that can be marriage-wreckers for others – money, children, intimacy and more. They golfed together on a regular basis. They traveled. They rode bikes. Played bridge. They were partners in every sense of the word.
“I helped her in the house,” Ed said. “Some of these guys (say), ‘I work outside the house, that’s the wife’s work.’ That’s not a team.”
“We had our differences, obviously,” Ed said. “We had arguments. But nothing long lasting.”
End of an era
One thing they differed on was doctors. Getting Kay to the general practitioner twice a year was a triumph.
But he could see a shift in her the last couple of years – both in personality and health. Last June, he and the kids grew alarmed.
“She had been coughing incessantly, continuously, for weeks prior,” Ed explained.
Kay always complained of feeling cold. When Ed saw that a lump on her leg was as “big as a softball,” he urged her to let him take her to the hospital.
“She said, ‘OK,’ ” Ed recalled. “As she began leaving the room to change, she said quietly, ‘I have not been taking my medication.’ ”
Ed’s voice cracks at the memory — he later discovered a year’s worth of blood pressure pills.
Tests revealed Kay had a blockage in her leg, hardening of the arteries in the brain, as well as cancer in the upper spine that had spread. She also contracted pneumonia.
Ed remembers holding his wife’s hand that Friday in the intensive care unit. Her touch was incredibly cold.
About 2 a.m. the next morning, the phone rang. Kay was gone.
Her choice
Ed doesn’t like his new reality. But the family believed Kay wanted to do things on her terms.
“She must have known,” he said of the cancer that silently crept through her.
He defends her choice, fearing cancer treatments would’ve turned her into a “zombie.”
“Would you want that?” he asked. “Are you going to be cured? No, you’re going to be suffering worse than you were for X number of months, and then you know what the final outcome’s going to be. You’re going to die.”
Is he glad she chose to live life instead of possibly trying to prolong it?
“Yes, I am,” he insists. “If she was 59, no. But she was 89½ years old. That’s a full life. Not everyone can say that.”
“She did it the way she wanted,” Ed said. “I don’t blame her for that. Sure, I miss her terribly. But it was her time.”
His children encourage him to keep busy, signing him up for a gym membership. He attends weekly yoga classes at a senior center. He participates in a grief group.
Kay was cremated. The family planned to make Cape Canaveral National Cemetery her final resting place. Ed said there, they will be together again. Someday.
For now, Ed wants others to know this about love: keep disagreements to a minimum and appreciate what you have – no one is perfect, after all.
“You should have a wake-up call every day,” Ed weeps. “Every morning and every night, when you say your prayers. Thank God for what I have. Thank God.”
“Sure, I have regrets. A lot of things I said, I shouldn’t have said. It wasn’t a perfect life. But it was a good life.”
Daughter Elizabeth says her parents taught her about commitment. “It’s the easy way out to say you quit,” Elizabeth said. “Being together for 70 years isn’t always easy, but it’s rewarding.”
For now, Ed takes solace in the curious foliage fronting the home he shared with his soulmate. A small section of shrubbery has sprouted away from the rest, the green leaves taking on a shape similar to a cross. In the 43 years there, he’s never seen anything like it.
“Now tell me that’s a coincidence,” Ed says. “I think there’s a positive message there. God is with me. He’s with the whole family. He’s watching over us.”
Somebody is.
Contact Paulson at 321-242-2783 or spaulson@floridatoday.com.