Couple rediscovers why they fell in love as they face wife's terminal illness

Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times

Louie and Tina Shepheard say they have rediscovered their love for each other since Tina, who has terminal lung cancer, has been in hospice care.

Ernestina and Louie Shepheard begin and end each day the same way.
   "We thank the good Lord for another day of life he's given us," said Shepheard, 52, whose wife, nicknamed Tina, a 52-year-old former licensed vocational nurse, is in the latter stages of terminal lung cancer.
   His wife may not be beating her cancer, Louie Shepheard concedes, but not even disease will destroy their marriage.
   "I think our personal relationship has gotten stronger," said Louie Shepheard, who helps his wife get in and out of bed every day, prepares her meals and sees to it that all her needs are met. "That's what I call marriage."
   When the Shepheards got the diagnosis last February, fear and worry took over.
   So thrown were they by what the medical tests revealed that they couldn't bring themselves to break it to their two sons.
   That denial led to silence and the silence invited resentment and misunderstanding.
   "Louie was doing shift work and when he wasn't working he'd come stay with me in the hospital," said Tina Shepheard.
   "But we weren't really communicating, and it seemed to me like he only had time for other things. It put even more strain on our marriage."
   The silence and, in turn, the strain ended when they turned to hospice, which helped the couple come to terms with Tina Shepheard's illness.
   "I like to see ourselves as the calm in the storm," said James Mac Ewan, the VistaCare Hospice registered nurse case manager who helped the Shepheards.
   Louie Shepheard concedes losing his direction when the "storm" first hit, burying himself in work to avoid what was happening at home.
   "I was working a lot of hours," he said.
   "I felt like I was doing what I had to to keep my sanity.
   "But then we found hospice."
   And in the process, the Shepheards found each other again.
   They also found a sweet peace that has more than restored their marriage and strengthened the vows they made 31 years ago more than they ever thought possible.
   "The time we have together is the most precious time we have," Louie Shepheard said.
   "My wife is my closest friend. She's the dearest thing in my life."