Moving Oleta was the hardest thing he'd done.
The nurses saw an old woman crying,
But he saw the love of his life.

She don't know where she is,
But she knows this isn't home:
Love is a hard, hard road.

He met her in the summer of thirty-seven,
In a brush arbor down on the Rush Creek shore.
He loved her black hair and the mischief in her smile
But she won him with her eyes...

All the years and children gone,
He still sees her the same:
Love is a hard, hard road.

He woke up each morning and drove into town;
He stayed all day 'til her dinner came.
Then he took her to her room
Leaned on her wheelchair like a walker,
And covered her with a quilt that she'd made...

Only God and a couple of nurses,
Helped the old man shoulder the load:
Love is a hard, hard road.

He said "They tell me this is all that's left,
Say this hell on earth is best,
I list all those reasons and I still don't understand!"

He cursed his body old and weak;
Tears of failure burned his cheeks.
He said "Oh, don't you know I prayed to die before this day...:"
Love is a hard, hard road.

There's a shadow much darker than the Valley of Death,
When you fear the reaper might not come today.
They line 'em up in lazy boys out in the sunroom;
The TV keeps the quiet away...

She can't recall his name,
And she's the only love he's known:
Love is a hard, hard road...
Love is a hard, hard road.

Moving Oleta was the hardest thing he'd done.