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Liz Slive went home Thursday morning, and I just know Mike Slive was there. Waiting for his girl, the way he did at the Hanover, N.H., bus station when she would ride the Greyhound nine hours from New York City for a weekend visit. Wearing his favorite leather hat, the one they bought on a trip to Monterey. Smoking a good cigar because he knows she knows the difference.
Mike would have one more surprise for his bride as they reunited in a better place, four years after he went to his rest and a large part of her heart went with him. He would be carrying flowers, but not just any old stems. These would be the same number and type he'd had delivered to her mother's house to greet her after an overseas trip with family shortly before they were engaged.
Nine yellow roses to symbolize the September weekend back in the 1960s when their relationship turned serious and began to bloom.
Liz would remember. She did remember so much and so well. How do I know? Because over the final months of her life, before she passed away peacefully Thursday morning at the age of 77, she shared those memories with me.
As if I weren't fortunate enough to call the late Mike Slive my friend, I got luckier still. I got to sit down with his best friend and walk down memory lane. On 10 afternoons from August to December, Liz and I talked about the love of her life and their life together. Two months shy of 50 years of marriage. Ten years of friendship before. Six decades of adventure and devotion all told.
She talked and I listened, recording our conversations for the family to have as an oral history of Anna Slive Harwood's parents and Abigail's grandparents. Those Tuesdays with Liz, with an occasional Thursday or Saturday thrown in, were Anna's idea, and like so many of her inspirations, it was the right thing to do at just the right time.
Read the rest of Kevin's memories of a great lady. Only in The Lede.
