This afternoon I was waiting for mom at Kaiser when I heard the soft, slow shuffle of feet and the clack of a cane approach from my right. I looked up as a woman no less than 80 walked up to the man who had been sitting on the other side of the corner just to my left. "I'm all done Sweetheart." She rested against her cane as she fished through her pocket with her right hand to pull out a gold bracelet she carefully placed onto her wrist. Her husband gathered up her purse and a plastic bag that held some paperwork and some medication. He rocked back and forth a few times before he was able to get to his feet while she waited patiently for him to get vertical. I didn't hear the words they spoke back and forth for I was too buys admiring them. How long have they been bound together by love and a promise signified by a gold band on their left hand? They were a beautiful thing to watch. There was a slight clatter as she dropped her cane. Her husband tried to bend down to pick it up for her but I jumped up and picked it up myself. They both thanked me and I replied that I'm young and limber. God bless this woman, she looks at me with a twinkle in her eye and asks, "Are you saying I'm old?" I laughed and I said, "well, you're slightly older than me." She looks haughty as she quips, "only by a few years I'm sure." I grinned as her husband was standing by and just smiling. "Of course, " I said back, as if the mere thought of her being old never entered my mind, "why, you're old enough to be my big sister!" She laughed in appreciation and they both bade me a good day.
They both left but just a bit later Mom came out and we were ready to go. We were right behind these two lovebirds when he stopped, stooped all the way over to pick up a penny. It made me smile. He carefully put it into his pocket before taking his wife's hand. They were both hunched over with the weight of their years. I stopped to rifle through my bag to look for my camera. They were shambling before me, their fingers interlocked as if to defy that love belongs to those young enough to waste it. Their hands were work hardened, spotted with age and wrinkled and yet it was perhaps one of the most beautiful things I have seen in a very long time.
That is what people want, a love that really does last a lifetime and it's love like that that gives us young 'uns the hope that maybe,just maybe love really can, in fact, last a whole life long.
