From the archives: This story was last updated in May 2019.
After Libby Sanders had to amputate her left pinky following an accident, she thought she could cope. Her husband noticed, however, that she wasn’t her usual self. So, when Libby was painting her nails one day, she went to paint her left pinky by habit but felt a little dejected when she was reminded it wasn’t there. That’s when her husband stretched his hand out, and thus this story was born.“I was shutting the door really hard because it wasn’t shutting all the way. I broke the door and the handle snapped off. A piece of it snagged my pinky and it bruised really badly,” Libby, a nurse from Jasper, Indiana, told Bravo TV, alluding to the accident that happened in February 2016.
“I had to see a hand surgeon and eventually part of my hand actually died. I had to have it amputated in March.”
Initially, Libby tried to shrug it off. “It’s just a pinky,” she said. “I’m very much a get-up and keep going kind of person.”
However, her husband noticed it had affected her inside.
“...my husband saw that I’d been a little self-conscious here and there, he says I’ll put it in my pocket or hold it with my right hand,” Libby explained.
Six weeks after the pinky was amputated, Libby, a mom of five, said she was mostly used to having just nine fingers—but not when she was putting nail polish on her fingers.
“We were both sitting in bed watching TV together, we laugh so hard,” she said. “So I was painting my nails and going to paint my left pinky. I was used to doing that forever and I laughed. It’s a bummer and I’m still not used to not painting it. I still go to paint it every time. You think eventually I’d be like nope, don’t have one.”
Then, her husband did something that immediately went viral after Libby posted a picture of their hands on her Facebook page.
“Matt said ‘I will be your surrogate pinky. You can paint my pinky to match your nails for the rest of our lives.’
“And so we did....
“I cannot image a sweeter, kinder man. No words adequately describe our love,” Libby shared on her Facebook page.
Reflecting on his promise, Matt imagined himself being “the 60-year-old man with a hot pink nail,” he told Inside Edition.
He was not often so self-conscious of the color on his pinky nail, but he said, “every time I see it, it reminds me of my wife. How cool to see a reminder of her every time.”
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