FORTY YEARS TOGETHER

Larry and Karen Wedding, 1968, Olathe, KS

APRIL 20, 1968-APRIL 20, 2008

My wife Karen and I celebrated our forty-year anniversary three months before breast cancer took her life as I held her hand.  So, it was no small coincidence that when I casually heard the lyrics to a new release of a Jason Isbell track on my Google home device that my head snapped around and it had my full attention.  The title of the song is If We Were Vampires which on first blush makes no sense whatsoever.  But I downloaded the track from The Nashville Sound and began to understand the lyrics.  The songwriter has known life, and the common destiny we all share, and this song needs to be shared by every couple on the planet.  Once I comprehended the lyrics, I understood the title:

"If we were vampires and death was a joke,

I wouldn’t feel the need to hold your hand…

Maybe time running out is a gift.

I'll give every second I can find."

I’ve had previous conversations with friends and couples about the elephant in the room when they come to realize later in life that barring a tragic accident, one of the two of them will some day be left to carry on without the other.  That realization can take the sting out of any petty offense or argument that is presently irritating them.  Neither should ever go to bed angry.  Of course, we’ve been given life to live to the fullest and we should do just that.  And if the time comes when one is left to spend some time alone, we should honor that bond and carry on, knowing that this life is only a finite segment of our existence and death is simply a transition from time to eternity.  And that spiritual existence is one spent in the presence of our creator with our loved ones in that beautiful forever.  Our time apart is relatively short in that context and it's only paused for a season.  Ironically, the refrain of the song says it all:

"It's knowing that this can't go on forever.

Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone.

Maybe we'll get 40 years together.

One day I'll be gone,

One day you'll be gone."

GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY

Together, Jamestown, NC

I’ve reached the age in life where I no longer leap out of bed in the morning the minute the clock radio unceremoniously disturbs a pleasant night’s sleep. My first instinct is to check that I didn’t transition to the other side in the night. Once that’s confirmed my next move is to see that all the extremities are functioning good enough to transition from a horizontal to a vertical posture. Then, and only then, do I emerge from the bedroom.

One of my weekly activities includes foraging for food at a local supermarket. As I entered the parking lot this morning, I noticed an elderly couple emerging from the exit doors. Since I normally park on the edge of a lot in an attempt to minimize the inevitable parking lot door dings, I had the perspective of watching the couple very slowly inching towards their Buick in a handicap space near the doors. Neither was rushing the other and it was a wonderful example of helping one another after a probable lifetime of togetherness.

It’s not something to dwell on, but inevitably one partner is destined to pass over to the other side ahead of the other. In the meantime, many years of bonding as a couple through all of the highlights and slings and arrows that life throws at us will guarantee that we have each other’s back. This couldn’t have been more visual than watching this couple holding hands and navigating such a mundane activity as a trip to the supermarket.

And even though we complain and experience the aches and pains of growing old gracefully, it’s still cause to be thankful, for it’s a blessing that is denied to so many.

THE DINER

Fifties Diner, Leawood, KS

The young professional couple sitting across from one another in the diner’s back booth had risen every day before sunrise that week. Their work lives were on a fast track containing employee management, deadlines, performance reviews, presentations to executives and customers at all levels, travel around the country, endless late afternoon meetings, meals on the run, technical computer analysis and research, etc. They had both worked late today and had coordinated via their smart phones to meet for a quick dinner before separately driving home to remotely wrap up their work week. Their order had just arrived at their table and they were silently consuming it so that they could move on to other more pressing priorities.

The nicely dressed older couple across the aisle at the diner was sitting together in their booth and moving in quite the opposite direction and at a far less frenetic pace. In fact they had arrived thirty minutes ago and were still far from finished with their meal. The husband liked to bring his wife to this fifties diner in hopes that the brightly lit juke box and black and white floor tiles would resurrect old memories of another time far, far away. He had been a successful businessman in the area for decades. But now he devoted his entire life to caring for his wife that had stood beside him for all those years before the Alzheimer’s diagnosis months earlier. Yes, he had the means to pay for full time care and he did have a housekeeper assist with their home maintenance. His one indulgence was a weekly tee time to play golf with his nephew and a couple of his friends who made certain that this break would be cathartic. They didn’t usually play from the senior tees, but that was understood when he joined their foursome.

The young couple happened to notice the patient, caring and loving way the older gentleman was assisting his wife with her dinner. Few words were spoken by them as well, but the “language of their lives” spoke volumes. It opened the eyes of their hearts to the reality of their relationship and the model they were observing. They paused their life and quietly discussed what they wanted for themselves as well. Then they exited the booth, settled up with the cashier and left the diner.

The senior couple also slowly exited their booth twenty minutes later and the husband asked their waitress for a check. The waitress then told him that a young couple had already paid it. When he incredulously asked why, the cashier said that they had observed the two of them having dinner together. They just wanted to pay it forward and let them know that their "sincere wish was to be blessed to have attained a similar relationship when they hopefully reached their age".

Post Script: A true story related in an e-mail by an old golfing friend who had invited me to join him and his uncle a few years ago for a friendly game of golf played from the senior tees. I filled in the blanks.