"Lovebirds" are back under the same roof

Only an elevator separates Carl Buck from his wife now.

Every day, he steps inside it, pressing the button marked "3." He makes his way down the hall at Providence Mount St. Vincent, past the dozens of elderly residents and smiling nurses. A red and black walker steadies his pace.

There are days, Carl says, when he still can't get over his luck: just two floors apart from Joan in the same retirement home in West Seattle. For nearly five years, he walked from his Issaquah apartment to her nursing home across the street, twice a day, every day. It got dangerous as his eyesight grew dimmer, but he couldn't bear not to see her.

Carl, 84, and Joan Buck, 75, were featured in a Seattle Times story on Valentine's Day. They have been married for 22 years but were forced to live apart when Joan's multiple sclerosis progressed to the point where Carl could no longer care for her at home.

"The lovebirds" — as they were called at Joan's previous nursing home — moved under the same roof in July.

"This is our next-to-last home," said Carl, meaning that heaven would be their final home.

The couple have been inseparable since they met in 1984, 25 years after Carl's first wife died. He had been thinking a lot about Joan Braseth, the mother of 10 who used to be his neighbor in West Seattle. So he called her, she invited him to dinner, and they married six months later.

Joan has battled MS, a disease that degenerates the central nervous system, for more than 50 years. In her younger days, she was known as the active matriarch who raised her children on her own after her husband left. An old picture shows her biking on Alki Beach.

She sits in a wheelchair these days, and relies on others to move her everywhere. Her words come through with quiet struggle. But she's quick to laugh at Carl's jokes. Or when she spots Tuxedo, the resident cat, on her roommate's bed.

"I've never met anyone who's struggled more than my mom," said her son, Ralph Braseth. "Yet you'll catch her saying she's had a blessed life."

A month ago, Joan was read her last rites. Then the staff at Providence gave her a liter of water through an IV. "And she woke up and wanted makeup on," said her daughter, Shelley Lebert.

Nurse manager Terri Goodwin wonders how much more Joan can take.

"My gut tells me that her MS is progressing," she said.

But today is a good day for Joan. She's dressed for the holidays in a gingerbread sweater vest and matching socks. She jokes when her daughter asks her what she wants for Christmas.

"My two front teeth," she says. A grin lights up her face.

Carl often spends the whole day sitting in a rocking chair next to Joan. Each hour rolls unnoticed into the next, with a glance, a touch, a kiss.

Carl talks about the end. He's at peace with it. Why fight something you can't control, he says.

Around 7 p.m., he gets back in the elevator and turns the key to his fifth-floor room. He used to call Joan's answering machine each night to tell her he loved her, but Joan's roommate wasn't fond of the evening calls.

Later, he falls asleep alone, taking comfort in knowing that Joan is downstairs, and that the journey is not as far as it once was.

Sonia Krishnan: 206-515-5546 or skrishnan@seattletimes.com