Ask any couple who have grown old together and the chances are they’ll remember where they first met.
For Andy Fierlit and his wife Donna, it was at a church dance in Pawtucker, Rhode Island, in 1960. Andy asked Donna for a stick of gum, and the rest was history.
The pair married in 1966 and went on to have four children. Those four children in turn gave them 12 grandchildren between them.
Sadly, at the age of 45 Donna suffered a brain aneurysm that left her partially paralysed. Doctors told Andy that it would be easiest – and indeed best – to put her in a nursing home. Andy had other ideas…
Though Andy listened to the advice, and took in suggestions to tour some local homes, he never forgot the promise he made to Donna on their wedding day: “For better or worse.”
Donna is now 73-years-old and wheelchair bound, but to say she’s had a boring, limited life would be as far from correct as you could possibly be.
Thanks in no small part to the fact Andy loves her just as much as he did that day he asked her for gum, Donna’s been doing something rather extraordinary for the past three decades.
“I told them we would live a normal life,” Andy said, when asked how he’d responded to doctors.
We’re not sure if it can be deemed ‘normal’, but Andy and Donna have certainly enjoyed a special life since her aneurysm. Andy decided that rather than see her bed-bound or stuck in a stuffy room, he would take her on a world trip.
27 years, 20 countries and seven continents later, they’re still going.
Watch the video below to see more about Adam and Donna’s fascinating life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=60&v=6TLujah1ep4
What a truly inspiring tale of a man determined not to let the trials and tribulations of life get on top of him.
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