Robert Weide lost his wife Linda after twenty-five married years. Twenty-eight total years together—a lifetime of shared jokes, accumulated memories, and the kind of intimacy that only time can build. She faced a serious illness with incredible bravery, the kind that makes you redefine what courage means. And on Christmas Day, she died peacefully in his arms.
In her obituary, Robert didn’t write the sanitized, formal tribute most people expect. He wrote the truth—raw, funny, heartbroken, and completely honest about who Linda was and what she meant to him.
“She had beauty, grace, wit, and legs that demanded to be shown off.” Not the legs that graced magazine covers, but the ones she was proud of, the ones she insisted on displaying because she knew they looked good and refused to pretend otherwise. That was Linda—confident, unapologetic, fully herself.
“That night I met her, I wrote: ‘I’m in big trouble.'” Because he knew immediately. Some people date for years trying to figure out if it’s right. Robert knew the first night that this woman would change everything, that falling for her was inevitable, that his life had just been divided into before-Linda and after-Linda.
“She wanted a grilled cheese for her birthday.” Not an expensive dinner or elaborate celebration. Just a grilled cheese sandwich, prepared by someone she loved. That simple request captured everything about their relationship—comfort, simplicity, the understanding that the best gifts aren’t expensive, they’re personal.
“She said her tombstone should read ‘I’m with Stupid.'” Even facing death, she was making jokes. Making him laugh. Refusing to let the end be solemn when their life together had been filled with humor. That was her final gift—making sure Robert would remember her laughing, not just crying.
“28 years wasn’t enough. I may be the luckiest man who ever lived.”
Read that again. Twenty-eight years with the love of his life, and his response isn’t bitterness about what was stolen, but gratitude for what he had. He lost her on Christmas Day—a date that will forever carry both joy and grief. But instead of cursing the universe for taking her, he calls himself lucky for having had her at all.
That’s what real love looks like. Not the Hollywood version where everything works out perfectly. Not the fairy tale where true love conquers all. But the messy, beautiful reality where you get decades together if you’re lucky, where illness doesn’t care about your plans, where Christmas becomes the day you held your wife as she died, and somehow—impossibly—you still call yourself fortunate.
The photo shows them together on a coast somewhere, ocean behind them, both smiling. Linda in her pink cat hat, Robert beside her, both looking at the camera like they know exactly how lucky they are. It’s an ordinary photo. That’s what makes it perfect. Because their love wasn’t built on grand gestures or dramatic moments—it was built on grilled cheese sandwiches and inside jokes and twenty-eight years of choosing each other every single day.
Robert is writing now, living in a world without Linda, carrying memories of her wit and her legs and the way she wanted ‘I’m with Stupid’ on her tombstone. He’s grieving. But he’s also grateful. Because twenty-eight years with Linda, even ending in heartbreak, was better than a lifetime with anyone else.
He may be the luckiest man who ever lived. Not because he didn’t lose her. But because he had her at all.