Since the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 or the Wuhan virus or the Chinese coronavirus or whatever the heck they’re calling or are accepting as socially acceptable to publicly say, there are still some stories that warm the heart. You just need to be able to sift through the trough of information and misinformation long enough to find it.
Imagine being married for 67 years and still loving that person just as much as the first day you were married. That seems to be the case for Bob and Nancy Shellard of Vernon, Connecticut.
Nancy now resides in a nursing home, and Bob visited her every day. They’ve spent every anniversary together, until now.
Last Friday, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed an executive order banning nursing homes from allowing any visitors because of the coronavirus, unless the visitor is a first responder, service provider or a family member visiting a patient who near “the end stage of life.”
Bob decided to take matters into his own hands by going to the Stafford Springs nursing home his wife resides in, standing outside Nancy’s window and holding up a sign for her to read on their anniversary.
“I’ve loved you 67 years and still do,” the sign read. “Happy anniversary.”
“It makes me feel bad because I want her down with me and I know she can't be,” Bob told NBC Connecticut.
If that doesn’t make you feel something, check yourself to see that you still have a pulse.
“It's just been an example for us, for all of us of kids. So all four of us have really learned a lot from them and I can only hope that I have half as much as what they have shared over the years," their daughter, Laura Mikolajczak said. "They have always been an inspiration to us and I think just seeing every year go by that they still express it in some way on their anniversary.”
For local coverage of the story, watch below: