Kenny Rogers' widow Wanda opened up about her loss in her first interview since his death. Rogers passed away March 2020 at age 81. She shared everything from what she misses most about him to how they met.

“You would think Kenny was the most average guy. He was never pretentious, and he sort of taught [the boys] that. He never needed any special attention,” Wanda told People. “I miss his love, his support. I miss his touch. I miss everything about him. I wish we could have that one last conversation just to say, ‘Are you good? Are you okay?'”

These past three years, Rogers' widow dealt with grief through song. In June, she made an album of his archives called Life Is Like a Song, compiling deeply personal tracks recorded between 2008 and 2011.

“I want to make sure his legacy grows and stays alive,” she said. “I think Kenny would be beyond happy and proud of the album. Kenny's whole thing was he always wanted to say in a song what every man wanted to say and every woman wanted to hear. I think this would fall right into that category.”

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One of the songs, Goodbye, was written by Lionel Richie, a close friend of Rogers and Wanda. She stills keeps in touch with Richie. “When things are tough, you know who your real friends are. And I think he knew,” she said. “[Lionel] is truly Kenny's brother. He definitely just wants to make sure that I'm always okay and the boys are okay and he just has the biggest heart.”

Wanda and Rogers met in 1993 at a restaurant she used to work. The singer was immediately taken.

“The bartenders always would play jokes on me. They said, ‘Oh, Kenny Rogers called back,' and they gave me a note,” she said. “I balled it up and threw it in a trash can, and they went diving after it. I thought, ‘Maybe they're not joking.' It all started out like that, [but] we just became really close and it grew from there.”