"At the beginning, when I would come to visit, he would say, `Oh, look how beautiful you are,'" Elsie said. "And if he saw someone, he'd say, `This is my wife. Isn't she gorgeous?'"
Today, Louie barely recognizes Elsie when she comes to visit him in his room at the Reminiscence section of Brighton Gardens.
But she still comes, just about every day, and sits by his bed. Mostly nowadays, Louie just sleeps.
"He gets cold," Elsie said, her voice low and crackly. "So I have to put my jacket on him to keep him warm."
Such small acts of kindness characterize the love affairs of the Blooms, the Swartzes and Bill Miller and Jeanne Hamilton.
Samuel Bloom doesn't move too well anymore, so Anne bends, slowly, to fasten his shoes. When she stands upright again, her face is red from the effort.
"Hey! You're all sunburned," he jokes. Which means, "Thank you."
In return, Anne play-punches him in the belly. Which means, "You're welcome."
At 99, Bill still takes care of Jeanne. He cuts Jeanne's meat on her dinner plate and opens the cream for her to put in her coffee. Every day, they dress in the same colors.
"At night when I say good night to her, we've already determined what we're going to wear the next day," Bill said. "And in the morning, when I see her for breakfast, I tell her I missed her the 12 hours that we were away."
If there's only one lesson Alford-Cooper learned from all studies of lifelong lovers such as these three couples, it was this:
"You have to be flexible," she said, "and willing to give more than you get."
Anne and Samuel Bloom know this. Bill and Jeanne, too.
And Elsie Swartz knows it all too well - 65 years, three sons, several grands and great-grands, and thousands and thousands of forgotten memories later.
"It's been difficult," said Elsie. "But when I look back, we had, I think, a happy family."
tanika.white@baltsun.com
