When Elvis Presley met Priscilla Beaulieu in Germany in 1959, their story began under circumstances that would later be viewed with understandable controversy because Priscilla was only 14 while Elvis was 24. Whatever people make of that beginning today, the relationship went on to shape both of their lives profoundly. Years later, they married in Las Vegas on May 1, 1967, and in February 1968 welcomed Lisa Marie. For a brief period, photographs seemed to capture the perfect American dream: Elvis, Priscilla, their little girl, and Graceland waiting for them at home.

But loving Elvis Presley meant sharing him with millions of strangers. There were movies, Las Vegas engagements, tours, nights away from home and the enormous machinery surrounding his career. Their relationship became increasingly complicated, and eventually love was not enough to keep the marriage together. They separated in 1972 and divorced in 1973. Yet one of the most touching parts of their story is that divorce did not turn them into enemies. They remained connected through Lisa Marie, and photographs from the day their divorce was finalized famously show them leaving the courthouse together, even holding hands. It was an unusually gentle image at the end of a marriage that had carried so much history.

Then came August 16, 1977. Elvis was only 42 when he died, and suddenly there would be no opportunity for their story to change again. Priscilla was no longer his wife, but she had been part of a world almost nobody else could fully understand: Germany before the marriage, Graceland, becoming parents, the extraordinary fame, and eventually the painful decision to separate. Some relationships end because two people stop loving each other. Others end because the life surrounding that love becomes too complicated to survive. Elvis and Priscilla’s story seems much closer to the latter.

Decades later, perhaps the most emotional thing about photographs of them together is knowing everything that came afterward. They could not remain husband and wife, but they would always share something permanent: a daughter, a history, and years in which their lives had been inseparable. Elvis became a memory far too soon, while Priscilla was left to grow older carrying memories of a man who never had that chance. Their story was imperfect and complicated, and its beginning deserves to be viewed honestly. But maybe that is precisely why it continues to fascinate people. It was never a fairy tale. It was two lives forever changed by meeting each other, even after they could no longer walk the same road together.