He is ninety, she six years younger. I said I wanted to know something more about love ... and ... I truly wish I weren't so cynical about love. They are helping me to see love in a way I haven't seen it before ... it is deeply moving.
They live in a comfortable garden home under the departure end of 36 ... it was delightful to hear the continuous purr of light engines climbing. She said every evening that the weather will allow, they sit outside on their swing and watch the little airplanes and the hummingbirds. Neither of them has ever flown in a small plane, but they enjoy them the way I enjoy hummingbirds at the feeder.
I spent several hours in a rocking chair in their living room this morning listening to her reminisce ... and try to remember words to express what she wanted to say ... and straining to hold the thread of what she was saying. I like older people quite a bit. I am fascinated to hear what of their lives they want to share ... what was planted deep enough to still have hold in the oft tilled soil of their souls?
She has always been a homemaker ... raising four boys. Pictures of their family are in frames on every surface. And there is a small Christmas tree in front of the fireplace, with lights, and garlands, and all her favourite ornaments sparkling in this morning's summer sun. She likes Christmas. I do too ... maybe someday I will have a little tree that stays up year 'round celebrating the birth of hope.
He stayed for a bit to make sure she was comfortable being left with me while he ran a few errands ... she doesn't remember me at all, and I was so glad I had a few pictures of L and I hiking the trail to confirm that I actually do know L. He has always been one of her favorites! Sweet. I can't remember how many times she asked me whose wife are you ... She doesn't think I sit with him at church ... it's true that I don't always sit right next to him during the service, sometimes two or three kids will sit between us. He taught the senior adult men's Sunday School class at our church for many years and all the old guys are very fond of him, as are their sweet wives.
She is grateful for her husband's tenderness towards her. She started to cry a bit when she told me she wished they could die together ... She doesn't wish him dead she said, but she knows her health is not good and she can't imagine being without him. She said she is afraid to go to heaven without him ... she doesn't remember being without him nearby. She doesn't remember when he used to leave for a day at his office ... she sat where she could see his car coming up their street, and I kept an ear on the garage door opening ... I wanted to be sure to be watching her when she first saw his car. She still has a beautiful smile. It is the kind of smile a woman with a well tended heart grows in to over time ... it is a smile that creates more smiles. I think she has been bringing out the very best in people for a long time.
The mind is an amazing thing. She really seemed to enjoy reading names out of the church directory and asking me about them ... what happened to this one and that one. It was fun for me to see how happy she was that I could tell her nice stories about her friends ... She wanted to know why one man was alone in his picture ... where was his wife ... The wife had been her Sunday School teacher for many years before she died unexpectedly on a tour of the Holy Land a few years ago. I could see her confused that I seemed to know so many sweet stories but she just couldn't remember ever seeing me before.
How are our impressions formed, and why do we remember what we remember? I am not afraid of forgetting large chucks of my life. I wish I could be there to see what remains important enough to stay put. And important enough really isn't even the correct sentiment ... .
There was a beautiful crocheted tablecloth on the side table between their chairs. He was pleased to tell me that she began making it the year they were married. She remembered working on the table cloth. I asked her permission to take a picture of it ... when I got down on the floor for the angle I wanted, we both saw a pink wash cloth hiding underneath. She was embarrassed. She apologised for not being able to keep her home as she used to ... She said the cloth was left there from when she dried the feet of her friend. He was having some foot problem that required an occasional soak ... she dries his feet afterwards ... He said it breaks his heart to watch her trying to figure out how to get the cloth between his toes ... Watching as your love disappears is courageous work I think. Lonely work ... his strength will keep her safe in this confusing tangle on the path they walk together towards home ... I know he is trying to spare her his grief.
When he arrived home she was so precious ... lighting up like a school girl. Gosh, I can feel my chest tightening up as I type that. He came right up to her and handed her the mail, asking her how her morning was before smiling over at me. So precious. So very precious. And ... it's easy for me to imagine her in heaven ... sitting there near enough to keep her eye on the gates ... waiting in joyful expectation for him to come through.
When it was time for me to go, he showed me his garden, and I told him she was very fond of the swing out under the trees ... and the hummingbirds ... I know it is because of the time they have spent there together. He wondered what she remembered and I told him she remembers how much her life with you has meant to her ... remembers a lifetime of sweetness with him ... and that's the truth ... that's pretty much all she was sure about. He had a tear squeezing his eye when he told me she sometimes wakes up at night and asks him if he is her husband.
Today she remembers. Today she tells me that he has always been the best husband in the world. Today she tells me that she always knows that he is her best friend. She knows that with her soul I think ... in her soul the truth of that is a treasure beyond reach, and I see it sparkling from her.
Theirs is a love story which can be seen over time ... lots of time, and I don't know the story of each day. I know every one's life has joyous times and more difficult times woven together ... we help each other create the table cloth on the communion table where love is celebrated. I can't see the individual stitches. She has lived with her love, Him, long enough to remember what seems to me to be the sweetest, most precious, most essential thing ... it's the story which I Corinthians 13 tries to illuminate for us.
Love ... protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres ... and faith, hope, and love remain when all the other stuff falls away ... and God said the most important of these is love. I like it that a husband became a best friend ... a friend of one's soul as Christ wants to be to us ... a best friend whom human frailties cannot shake loose even for a second ... I am certain that love is woven in to eternity.
I like it that their family places flowers on the communion table to celebrate their love. I'm trying to hear what the preacher is saying ... I'm hearing a story about love.
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