Lisa Lee, 25, was sleeping next to her husband Lewis Little when she thought she heard him snoring. “I shoved him out of bed to stop what I believed was snoring,” Lisa explained. But as she touched the moist sheet, she knew something wasn’t right. Lewis wasn’t breathing. “I turned on the light and stared at his battered face,” she added.
Panicked, Lisa called for an ambulance, but the wait felt endless. When medics arrived, they broke the heartbreaking news: Lewis had passed away hours earlier. The sound Lisa had mistaken for snoring was, in fact, air escaping his body and passing through his vocal cords.
Lewis had been diagnosed with Brugada syndrome, a rare heart condition, just a year earlier. Doctors had assured him that his life wasn’t in danger and that he could live a long life despite the condition. Tragically, just a year later, Lewis died unexpectedly in his sleep.
Lisa was left in shock. “I couldn’t believe it. The doctors told us he was going to be fine,” she said, still processing the sudden loss of her husband.
Brugada syndrome is a genetic condition that affects the heart’s rhythm and can lead to sudden death. In Lewis’s case, it proved fatal despite earlier reassurances.
100 Year olds give secret to long marriage
Joe and Ann met in 1964Joe was a young soldier on leave, and Ann was a nurse at the local hospital, working tirelessly to tend to the men who came home battered and bruised. One afternoon, they happened to sit next to each other on a rickety bench in a small park by the hospital. Joe, looking down at his boots, noticed a young woman with kind eyes and a quiet smile reading a book beside him. They struck up a conversation about the book, and Joe felt like he’d been swept away to another world, far from the war and all its chaos.
The very next day, Joe had to leave for deployment again, but before he did, they arranged to meet on that same bench, no matter where life took them. Miraculously, they both survived the war, and when Joe returned, he found Ann waiting for him on that bench, a familiar sparkle in her eyes. They shared a lifetime together, raising a family, building a home, and creating a love that would endure the tests of time.
When they retired at age 55, they made it their tradition to return to that very park every single day, to sit together on their bench. Rain or shine, they’d be there, side by side, sharing stories, laughing, or just holding hands in comfortable silence. As the years went on, people in the town started calling it “Joe and Ann’s Bench.” Young couples would stop and smile at the sight of them, seeing the kind of love they hoped to grow into one day.
Their lives were filled with seasons of change—new grandkids, old friends passing, aches and pains that came with age—but that bench stayed the same. To them, it was more than a spot in the park; it was a witness to their love story, to all the memories they’d shared there.
Now, at 100 years old, they still meet at that bench every day. Joe helps Ann with her coat, and Ann straightens Joe’s hat before they sit. They often laugh about how old they’ve gotten, and every once in a while, Ann will lean her head on Joe’s shoulder like she did in the early days. Sometimes they’re silent for long stretches, but in that silence, they feel the weight of the love they’ve built together, rich with a thousand unspoken words.
When people ask them the secret to staying in love for so long, Joe always winks and says, “Just find someone you want to sit with, forever.” Ann always smiles at him when he says this, knowing he still means it with his whole heart.
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