Sad So-Long: Edna Stanley dies

Friends, neighbors and acquaintances have been keeping an eye on Leroy and Edna Stanley for years.

How could we not?

Nearly every day, Mr. Stanley helped his wife into her wheelchair and pushed her along Knollwood Street for a lunch date or quick trip to the grocery store.

With those simple acts, the Stanleys became for many of us a symbol of a husband's devotion and a reminder of the way we would like things to be.

And because of that, it was impossible for neighbors not to notice the cars and trucks that started showing up in the Stanleys' driveway. Something bad was happening, and we were powerless to do anything about it.

Edna Stanley was admitted to Forsyth Medical Center on Nov. 4. With her husband of 61 years nearby, she died Monday afternoon.

She was 87.

"She'd been suffering.... The last words she said to me were ‘I love you. Do you love me, too?'" Mr. Stanley said yesterday. "As long as I live, I'll never forget that."

A social butterfly

News of Mrs. Stanley's passing spread quickly.

Mr. Stanley called a few friends Monday night, and neighbors in the Knollwood Manor subdivision passed word as we passed each other in the street yesterday.

"Edna was just such a sweet, sweet lady," said C.L. Gordon, a friend of the family who drove over to visit yesterday with Leroy Stanley. "She was always reaching out to you, just wanting to love on everybody."

Edna Stanley had been in relative poor health. She had a stroke 10 years ago that left her confined to a wheelchair and made her speech difficult for some folks to understand.

She never had to worry about her physical limitations, though, not so long as Leroy Stanley could draw a breath. He would help his wife get dressed in the morning and make sure she got out on their daily errands.

"When we'd go to bed at night, I'd pick her up and she'd reach up and mess my hair up," Mr. Stanley said, smiling at the memory. "She'd just laugh and laugh."

Though I'd thought about it for years, I didn't write about the Stanleys until June. Stupidly, I'd thought that doing so would somehow invade their privacy.

The truth was that Mr. Stanley enjoyed talking about his wife, and Mrs. Stanley -- to use her husband's words -- was a "social butterfly."

They were tickled and somewhat surprised by an outpouring of love from the community, particularly their friends at the Chick-fil-A restaurant down the street, who organized a grand anniversary party June 15.

"I just can't thank you enough," Mr. Stanley said a few days later. "Edna, she really enjoyed that."

Funny thing is, I should have been the one thanking him.

Long life, well-lived

If you didn't know a thing about them, if you had never seen Mr. Stanley pushing Mrs. Stanley in her wheelchair, everything you need to know about them is present in their living room.

A Bible on the coffee table, a throw pillow embroidered with "The Best Friend is an Old Friend" and a hutch filled with bride and groom figurines tell the story of a couple who lived by the words "Till death do us part."

Though family members were busy helping make funeral arrangements and the phone in the kitchen was ringing constantly, Mr. Stanley was gracious enough to share a few memories of Mrs. Stanley.

He was grateful for the good, long life he had with her, and touched by the thought that so many would mourn her death.

He hadn't had time to consider where or to whom he would like memorial offerings to be made. He seemed genuinely surprised to hear that people might want to do something in Mrs. Stanley's honor.

"She used to ... used to? ... I just said ‘used to," he said, his voice trailing off. "She just loved children. She never wanted to see a child suffer."

"You just don't know how much you care for a person until they're gone," Mr. Stanley said.

Those of us fortunate enough to have seen Mr. Stanley with his wife know how much he cared. We should all have somebody like that to push us up our own hills when we can no longer do so for ourselves.

ssexton@wsjournal.com



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