‘I Know She’s Gone, but Why?’: Love and Loss at a Boulder Grocery Store

Funerals for the victims of the mass shooting in Colorado were being held this week. Teri Leiker, a beloved employee at the King Soopers store for 31 years, was among them.

BOULDER, Colo. — Teri Leiker and Clint Ponsford shared a love story that began and ended at the grocery store. They spent more than 30 years working at the same King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, where Ms. Leiker charmed customers with her big laugh and Mr. Ponsford could spot the peaks of the Flatirons when he went outside to wrangle shopping carts. They had both competed in Colorado’s Special Olympics and helped each other get through a lot: deaths, a breakup and the challenges of navigating this world as two people with cognitive disabilities. About a year and a half ago, their friendship turned into something deeper. They went on karaoke dates. They watched Disney movies that Ms. Leiker adored. On workdays, they would get up at 3:30 a.m. in Ms. Leiker’s condo to make coffee, trade kisses and watch reruns of “Murder, She Wrote” before Mr. Ponsford left for the early shift.