Clyde and Cassandra Loftis met at work. She was a glass blower, and he became one of her managers. Eventually, they started dating. There were, of course, the awkward questions about such workplace entanglements, but it was all by the book.
"He was brilliant. Very, very smart man — and funny," Cassandra said. "And those beautiful blue eyes. His kindness, his generosity. I got to see all of that and wanted to have that."
By 2009, they were getting married. At the reception afterward, Clyde had a surprise: a song.
He had been playing guitar since he was 8 years old and had dreams of being a rock star.
"I'm not bragging, but I can play like hell," Clyde said.
He brought his guitar with him when he served in the Navy and later started bands with his friends. Music was a part of him.
"He had a song recorded for our first dance," Cassandra said. "The most amazing, wonderful thing."
They made a life together and for a few years, things were pretty good. They had their struggles, but nothing out of the ordinary.
But around 2018, Cassandra started to see changes in Clyde, who was in his late 50s by then. She'd tell him something or ask him to do something and he wouldn't remember. She chalked it up to the typical husband-not-listening-to-his-wife stuff.
But soon, a coworker said they had started to notice something off about Clyde. He was forgetting things at work and getting agitated with people — behavior that was not normal for him.
"I mean he would come to me at work and ask me to help him," Cassandra said.
Clyde had to quit his job. They consulted doctors, but it took a while to find out exactly what was going on. Then he got a diagnosis: dementia.
Specifically, it was Alzheimer's disease.
"I understand it. And I'm not mad. Now, at first it was," Clyde said, struggling to keep his train of thought. "But with her and me … there's no way to get hurt."
It's been seven years since he was diagnosed. Clyde has lost a lot of what made him who he is. His math skills. Language skills. And after 50 years of playing guitar, he put the instrument down. He just couldn't face what he'd lost.
"He looks at a lot of pictures of himself and he thinks about all of the people he has been — all of the men he has been — and he's just trying to hold on to who he was," Cassandra said. "And it's hard."
But after a trip to Guitar Center not far from their house in Pflugerville, Clyde picked a guitar back up again.
"I don't want to be crude, but I just said, 'You know what? F- - - that. Do it. You can do it,'" Clyde said.
There are half a dozen guitars hanging on the walls and propped up on stands in his home studio. Last July, Clyde was in the zone playing guitar. Confident, but also a little unsteady.
"I love hearing him play, but it's kind of bittersweet because I was there when he was at his peak," Cassandra said.
When asked what he thinks about while he's playing, Clyde says he doesn't know.
"I just let it go. It's in me," he said. "If I get bored, I go into that studio and make some noise."
When I visited the Loftises again in January, I can instantly tell something is different. Cassandra seems tired, Clyde is quieter. It's clear things have gotten worse.
"Some days he's almost nonverbal," Cassandra said. "Somebody else had to tell me that, because your brain fills in the blanks of the conversation. I feel like we've been having amazing intellectual conversations, but he says one or two words."
Clyde's memory is declining fast. Cassandra said he'll sometimes ask her where she is, not recognizing her face. She tells him she's right there.
She's not going anywhere.
"He asks me to marry him over and over and over again and I always say yes. Right, babe?" Cassandra said.
"What?" Clyde replied.
He hardly touches his guitars anymore.
A while back, Clyde told Cassandra he wanted to write a song together. Almost like a sequel to the song he wrote for their first dance as a married couple, but this time with words. Clyde would provide the music — or at least a recording he made years ago. Cassandra would write the lyrics and sing.
She agonized over the words, writing a draft and tossing it out. The words she wrote were too self-centered, she said. More about her grief over slowly losing him than about their story.
Three more drafts later, she said she thinks she's found the words. But then, she's not sure it'll ever really be finished. It's called "We Are So Lucky."
Remember us in your dreams tonight.
Remember me in the morning.
We are Cass and Clyde.
And we will be until the end of time.
We are so lucky.
Does it sound perfect? No. Cassandra is the first to admit that.
But that, of course, is not the point. Like any love story, this one has its flaws. The point is to sound like the people in love. To sound real. To sound like you mean the words. And even when the person they're meant for doesn't always recognize you, you still feel it.
We should all be so lucky.
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