Louise Burgett knew no strangers.

You could meet her for the first time, and within five minutes, you'd feel like you'd known her all your life. She'd always remember you if she saw you again, and she'd probably have you come over and sit beside her, where she'd take your hand in hers and you'd laugh together.

She was almost always laughing. And if she wasn't laughing, she was marveling at something you said or did, and shaking her head while saying, "Well, I'll be," "You don't say," or a very long version of the word shoot, which she'd say, "shooooo-ooo-t."
She loved sitting on her porch in the swing, she loved Ron's salads and creative meal preparations, she loved when the family made Syrian food, and she loved her house. She loved having her family come to visit, and she loved talking on the phone. She was so popular, her line was frequently busy, and people would have to wait in line to call her. She loved her church, she loved sending cards to people (though the writing hurt her hands in the last few years, so she would do a few at a time), and she loved MCL -- especially the Harvard beets. She loved her sisters, Mary, Mabel and Corrine, and her brother, John, and she loved her father, Abraham, and mother, Latifah, who died when she was five. She had no children, but all her nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews, and great, great nieces and nephews were like a whole brood of children she adored.

She LOVED Joel Osteen, her patio goose, with all its clothing changes, and the color blue. She watched Dancing with the Stars and the Bachelor, and she used to watch The Young and the Restless, and she and Mabel would talk about it during the commercials. She was adventurous and light-hearted, and when she had the use of her legs and better eyesight, she'd hop in the car and go wherever she was needed. She enjoyed traveling and even the occasional bus trip to casinos!
She was a very happy person who rarely let her failing health get to her, and she was as devoted to family as they come. When her siblings were sick and bed-ridden, she'd spend all her free moments by their bedside, tending to their every need. No one knew this more than Charlie, who was, hands down, the greatest love of her life.

Though he wasn't much of a talker, she knew the way to measure a man is by his actions, not his words. And as far as action went, Charlie spoke volumes.

She met him on a blind date in April of 1946. They went to a movie. It was all rather uneventful. In fact, she wasn't even sure she liked him. They went out a few more times, and then she went off to St. Louis for a week with a friend.
When she returned to Indiana, and got on a connecting bus to go home, her girlfriend tugged at her shirt. “I think you'd better get off this bus,” she urged. “Looks like there's someone waiting for you outside.”
And sure enough, there was Charlie. He called her sister to see what time her bus came in, and he showed up. From that moment, until the day he died, he always showed up.

He was a good husband. He wasn't too pushy. He was clean cut. Her family loved him. And, turns out, so did she.
“You have to know him to know how he was,” she said with a smile. “He was so easy going. Anything I wanted to do, it was all right with him.”

In 1951, Charlie was told he had just six months to live, but he toughed it out until 1971, even so he would be in the hospital off and on that entire time. The last few years of his life he was bedridden, and Louise took care of him. Charlie would've done the same.
“I don't want to forget about him," she used to say. "You don't forget about someone you love. Charlie was my true love. He died June 3, and our anniversary would've been June 22. He died just before our 23-year anniversary. I would've liked to have spent 25 years with him.”

Louise Burgett lived 100 years, and blessed so many lives with her presence, and now she gets to be with the one person she wished she could have spent all those years with -- her beloved Charlie. And, of course, her mother and father, and beloved siblings.
Love doesn't end when someone dies. Louise knew that, and we know it, too. Love lives forever, and we can feel it all around us. Those of us who knew and loved Louise Burgett know that, and we are better people for having known and loved her.

Louise Burgett

September 11, 1917 - October 29, 2017

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