In a love story that rivals “The Notebook,” a Michigan man has proven that no obstacle is too big to stop him from seeing his wife daily in a push to help her remember their love for one another.
“It’s just a love that everybody needs to have,” Jodi Matthews said of Rex and Ellie Boots, who’ve been married for close to 60 years. Matthews serves as a certified nursing assistant at the Villa at Rose City, a 102-bed skilled nursing facility in Rose City, MI, where Ellie Boots lives after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s around 2013.
The facility detailed the couple’s love story in a video posted last week on social media that’s garnered nearly 11,000 views.
After his wife’s diagnosis, Rex Boots decided to take all of the love notes, cards and letters they shared with each other over the years and place them in binders so Ellie could see them and possibly reminisce.
“I pretty much went up there everyday [until the pandemic],” Boots said.
Matthews explained that when Boots would visit, his wife “her face would light up.”
“She knew exactly who he was. You could tell the love between those two. They’re inseparable. He was here everyday [before the pandemic], breakfast, lunch and dinner. He is so in love with her and she is so in love with him,” Matthews said.
Boots was forced to change his daily visits due to COVID-19 and facility visitation limits. When the restrictions started, he would go up to the facility and eat meals at the doorway.
“When it got cold, I would just stand up there in the window,” he said.
No matter the distance the two are still “inseparable.”
“During this pandemic, it’s just heartbreaking he can’t hold her hand, talk to her, give her hugs and kisses when he comes in and sees her,” Matthews added. “You can tell when she looks at him that she has the same glow and the hope that they’ll have a wonderful and long-lasting future together.”
