A great partner

Back when he still recognized his wife, Tommy Rhodes liked to walk up behind her as she washed the dishes, put his arms around her middle and kiss her on the cheek.

Back when he could still point out their first house — a three-bedroom ranch on Morwanda Street Northwest — Linda used to joke that he could get himself a girlfriend, if he wanted ... as long as he promised to keep rubbing her back every night.

A marriage is a shared history, forged of habits and memories and inside jokes.

But the almost 40-year marriage that Linda Rhodes knew and loved died two years ago, when Tommy no longer remembered nearby Williamson Road — never mind the image of a teenage Linda cruising down it in her sister’s brand-new Chevy Impala, the first time they glimpsed each other.

It was 1966, and Linda swears that the moment she saw his sparkling blue eyes she said to her girlfriend, “I don’t know who that man is, but I’m gonna marry him.”Tommy and Linda Rhodes pose in a family photo while dating in the late 1960s. (Click image to enlarge)

They were the quintessential Roanoke pair: Baby boomers and Baptists; nothing flashy. When they met in person later that day, it was at the Lendy’s drive-in in Boxley Hills.

They married in 1968. He co-owned a concrete company with his brothers while she stayed home with their three children.

But Tommy changed diapers when most men of his generation didn’t. When she bought their second house on a whim — before he’d even seen it — he didn’t flinch. He said not a word when she painted the living room pink.

Linda taught him to country line-dance, and if there was a rock to be moved or a new tree to be planted in the yard he was there for the heavy lifting.

“He was a great partner, cook, lover. The whole nine yards,” she says. Mainly, he was kind: She remembers crying when she learned she was pregnant with their youngest. Money was tight, and a third child had not been part of the plan.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get through this,” Tommy said, his usual cheerful self.

Daughter Marianne was in high school before Tommy confided that he’d been just as distraught as Linda. “What was I supposed to say?” he confessed, laughing. “You were so upset.”

When he retired in 2002, Tommy was 63 years old and fit and trim as the day they’d married.

The plan had been for him to piddle around the house, maybe add a room onto the back. He’d have dinner ready when she came home from work. They’d finally take that Caribbean cruise they’d been talking about since the kids left home.

That summer their oldest son found Tommy passed out in the back yard.

Even before, Linda had noticed he wasn’t quite himself: He complained of headaches and seemed to get irritated at the slightest things — a piece of paper not folding correctly, say.

She was not prepared when, a few weeks after his blackout, Tommy walked into the bedroom and said: “I’m going to go to bed now before the airplane lands on the roof.”