I wrote this in response to a prompt, picking out a photo from the recent obits...Gaye Jordan Dixon, "was freed from the burden of Alzeimer's on October 3, 2015...."

Gaye Jordan Dixon, fictional rememberance by anita c. fonte 10/15

Gaye

Gaye gazed at her face before pinning the cream-colored hat on her auburn hair.  Her nose, she considered for the millionth time, was a bit too round for her to be called pretty.  But its length fitted her face and gently balanced the curve of her definitive brows.  She liked her smile and dotted both lips with her newly purchased Helene Curtis cinnamon-red lipstick.  The silver earrings—something borrowed from her Aunt Meg—poked out beneath her curls and the new hat.  Here it is, the final touch, making me the bride of Hershaw, Virginia. Gaye gaily (yes, she thought, the word today fits me like the hat) swirled around the room.

She was no traditional bride.  The war had broken many traditions.  So her navy jacket informed strangers at City Hall that here was a woman who walked to her own bugles.

 

Bill

Bill was already in the lobby, waiting for her entrance and the click, click, of her leather pumps against the marble floor.  He didn’t often wear his full Navy uniform, but today was an exception.  They were finally formalizing their “matched pair” status.  And about time, too, he thought.  Trying to keep their shared nights a secret from family was getting tricky.  Particularly, Aunt Meg had a sixth sense about Gaye, and the Navy Pharmacy supervisor didn’t approve of any fooling around of his staff.  But, once they were married, they would let go of pretenses and he’d move into Gaye’s two room apartment.

Bill pictured the years ahead of them, once the war was over.  Maybe a couple of kids. Raise them in the mountains out west, open a lumber mill like his dad had done in Virginia.  Sure there would be challenges but they’d face them together.  After the war, no challenge could beat the two of them.

Even, he thought, in our later years, kids grown, he figured they’d find ways to be unretired and stay busy, happy. 

Bill had faith that with his strong constitution, matched by Gaye’s, they would slip into the sunset with smiles on their faces and arms entwined.