Looking forward, with backward glances

[Times photo: Dan McDuffie] Gilbert Hill, 102, of Zephyrhills is happy he will be spending the summer with family in Massachusetts, where he also will be close to the grave of his wife, Sadie, when the date of their 82nd anniversary arrives in June.

ZEPHYRHILLS -- Gilbert Hill grew a mustache. He looks younger now, more like a feisty 85 rather than the 102 he really is.

He bought a dark gray suit, too, prompting his 70-year-old son to ask, "Did you buy it to be laid out in?"

"Who the hell is getting laid out!?" Gilbert shot back.

Gilbert's wife, Sadie, died last July, a month to the day after their 81st wedding anniversary.

Ten months after her death, their home on Ridgewood Drive seems the same as the day she left it.

Sadie's blue recliner still sits empty beside Gilbert's in the living room. Her doilies still cover every couch and table and chair. The thermostat still hovers near a sweltering 90 degrees.

While the setting hasn't changed, Gilbert has.

"I started living again," he said.

He can write checks, something he hadn't done in four decades. He can cook now -- pot roast, fried eggs, salt pork -- and has gained 10 pounds, putting him back to 142.

Life without Sadie After 81 years of marriage, Gilbert Hill finds himself alone. At age 101, he has much to miss. And much to learn.

He can walk better than he has in two years, thanks to daily exercises, which he sometimes does at night when he can't sleep. He feels well enough most Sundays to venture to the local Methodist church, where that new suit comes in handy.

But at home, when the sun sets and silence surrounds him, he yearns for Sadie with each heartbeat. He spent his 102nd birthday "wondering why I was still here."

He feels her presence, even if he can't hear her high-pitched voice or hold her weathered hand.

"She is here," Gilbert said. "She follows me around. Sometimes I turn around to see if she's right behind me. Spirits do follow us."

He worries that when he does see her again, heaven will have changed her looks.

"How will I know her if she doesn't have her white curls?" he asked.

June 15 is drawing near. When the day arrives, Gilbert will wake alone on his wedding anniversary for the first time since 1920.

By then he will be in Bernardston, Mass., spending the summer with his 72-year-old daughter. Her house sits less than half a mile from the quaint graveyard where Sadie is buried.

Gilbert plans on visiting Sadie often. He knows of a florist shop in town, and he intends to keep a fresh bouquet on her grave.

Chances are he will go there to sit in the cemetery -- with two churches bordering it and a hill that slopes down to the river -- and spend his 82nd anniversary with Sadie.

He'll think about the day when he will see her again. He'll dream of her soft white curls and hope he can recognize her even without them.

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