Couple’s love story ‘like a fairy tale’

Sunday is the sixth wedding anniversary for Robert Eugene Saunders and his wife, Cindy.

That might not seem like a milestone celebration, but it’s not the miles that count.

Cindy describes their love story as a “fairy tale.” Rob considers it worthy of a script for a Hallmark movie.

There is a reason Cindy calls her husband “Rob” when everyone knows him as “Gene.” Gene was also the name of her late husband.

She was working at a florist shop on Houston Road when she met Rob in the spring of 2009. Her husband, Gene Elder, had died April 29. Eleven days later, she was called in to work on the busy Saturday before Mother’s Day.

Rob had gone by the florist to pick up yellow roses for his wife on what would be her last Mother’s Day. She died six weeks later, on June 20, two days before her 54th birthday.

They were introduced by the shop’s owner, Shelvy Neal, after Rob told her his wife had hepatitis C liver cirrhosis, the same disease that had claimed Cindy’s husband. Shelvy suggested maybe they could talk.

(Although she wasn’t playing matchmaker, Shelvy had a vision that Rob and Cindy would one day get married and have an outdoor wedding. She didn’t mention it until after Cindy told her she was engaged and that they planned to marry in the front yard of her home on Duffey Drive.)

“When you are coming out of a tragedy, you can’t really see happiness,” said Cindy. “All you can see is what you’ve got to get up and do the next day. All of a sudden, everything fell into place. It was like a fairy tale … happily ever after.”

“We watch those Hallmark movies, and we think our story could be a movie,” said Rob.

Rob is the chaplain at Heart of Georgia Hospice in Warner Robins. He grew up in Barnesville and graduated from Mercer in 1980 with a degree in theology. He met his first wife, Nancy, at a church in Jacksonville, Florida. She was from Canada, a full-blooded member of the Iroquois tribe.

They married in 1982 and moved to Macon, where Rob found work refinishing furniture and started a bi-vocational ministry. They had three children — two sons and a daughter. Nancy was diagnosed with the liver disease in 2003.

Cindy now works in the lab at Internal Medicine Associates in Macon. She married after graduating from Southwest High School and had two daughters. She divorced and was working at a dentist office, where the staff planned to dress as clowns for Halloween. She attended Harvest Cathedral, and asked Gene Elder, who coordinated a clown ministry at the church, for advice on how to apply clown make-up.

They fell in love, married and had a daughter, Rachael-Anne. Gene drove an 18-wheeler for a living, and was on the road most of the time. They opened several businesses “trying to get him out of the truck.” The last was a restaurant called Mr. Catfish & Friends in Juliette.

Shortly after they closed the restaurant, Cindy noticed her husband’s health was declining. After several months, he agreed to see a doctor. He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in October 2008, and placed on the list for a liver transplant. He died six months later.

In September, Cindy agreed to meet Rob for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel on Eisenhower. She made it clear to everyone it was not a date. They talked about their late spouses. She took him some information on grieving. He sought her advice on the emotional needs of his children following the death of their mother.

It wasn’t just breakfast. It was grits-and-coffee therapy. They cried a million tears.

“It was therapeutic to sit across from someone who understands your journey, to bare our souls and talk about the deep stuff,” said Rob.

After meeting for breakfast a few more times, Rob took the next step … literally. He asked if he could join her on her daily walks.

He had noticed her route along Houston Road. He often would plan his trips to leave his house on Allen Road just so he could wave her.

Their first “official” date was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. They went to Callaway Gardens to see the Christmas lights. Cindy didn’t want to rush their relationship, and Rob was fine with a slow walk.

Still, he was convinced he was falling in love. He even wrote a song about it.

“We were walking, and I looked over and told myself I could look at that face every day,” he said.

“There came a point when I realized I really liked this guy,” Cindy said. “Still, I didn’t want to be stupid and jump into something just because I had lost my husband.”

She had asked if she could start calling him “Robert” or “Rob.”

“I told myself there was a possibility I could spend the rest of my life with him, and I didn’t want to call him Gene,” she said.

Almost a year to the day later, Rob proposed in her living room in front of his three children and her three children. He wrote his proposal in the form of a song and sang it while his son played the guitar. Since Cindy’s youngest daughter, Rachael-Anne, was still living at home, he asked her for permission to ask for her mother’s hand in marriage.

The flowers were blooming in the yard on the Saturday of their wedding. Rob sang the first song he had written for Cindy as she walked to the altar.

The Saunders have been known to jump in the car and ride for hours. Rob calls it “windshield time.” They often talk about all the moving parts of their fairy tale. A grief counselor once told Rob their story is rare. Most people “in the same place” do not find what they have.

They understand talking too much about their joy could come across as diminishing the happiness of their lives before they met. They have learned to navigate the path of holding their former spouses in a place of respect while moving forward with their marriage.

“We are never far away from that feeling, even in our best of times,” said Rob. “We hold our memories in one hand and honor them. And we hold each other and our current lives in the other.”

This story was originally published June 23, 2017 at 4:29 PM with the headline "Couple’s love story ‘like a fairy tale’."