VANCOUVER, Wash. — Do you remember how you fell in love? Was it their smile, or their personality or was their eyes. For Carol Bailey, it was her husband Hal's eyes. They met when they were both enlisted in the Air Force.
"His twinkling blue eyes. He walked through, I routed secret messages around the world and Hal worked on the machines that took care of those. He worked on the machines that took care of sending those messages out and he walked through my work site one night, he smiled and 61 years later here I am," she said laughing.
Carol and Hal have been married for 60 years. They've been separated before when he served in the Vietnam and Korean Wars, but she says this time it's different.
"I don't know what the difference is, but it's knowing that I can't see him is what really bothers me and knowing that he doesn't understand that, when we were younger and it was fine," Carol said.
Hal was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2008 and later with dementia. He was moved into an adult care home recently and every day Carol would visit or talk with Hal over the phone.
When the COVID-19 outbreak cut off outside visitors from senior care facilities that also meant Carol couldn't see Hal in person.
"We talk together and the kids call him, but he still has a hard time and I can still see him shaking his head like he always does and says, I don't understand this. I tell him, I don't understand this either. We'll get over it just like we did with our military separations."
"It is hard. I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said fighting back tears.
This is the closest they've come in 3 weeks during the outbreak. The song she sings is one she sang to her own grandkids.
"So that's when I saw my sign sitting on the floor here, that says I love you, a bushel and a peck and I decided to go over and serenade him."
Carol can't wait until the day she and Hal can once again be by each other's sides.
"When I get a laugh out of him, his eyes twinkle again. That's what I want to see. I want to see his twinkling blue eyes."