The forgotten dimension

On this site I often post a humorous slant to the gender facet of relationships. My intent has been to offer a momentary smile or grin to a topic that plays such an important role in each of our lives, specifically, the opposite sex and why we find that difference so rewarding and frustrating at the same time. But not today. No, I decided to share another angle of relationships.

Have you ever been at a mall or restaurant or grocery store and watched an elderly couple clearly in love. No, I don’t mean they’re all over each other (that’s for the young). Through all the wrinkles, the joint pains, the bent walking posture, they still exhibit behavior that cries out, “we are of one heart, always have been, always will be.” I was so moved by such behavior about twenty years ago at a hamburger junk, I tucked the memory away in my mind with the intent of someday using it in a story, and I did. I was in a restaurant with my son and a couple in their late seventies sat in a corner sharing a burger and fries, only she was feeding him each bite, tenderly, with a gentle feminine touch that only a woman in love to the same man for fifty years can do. The husband’s mind had obviously seen better days, but in her eyes he was still her hero.

Now let me return to today. The last six weeks of my world has centered around my battle with cancer. Each day, as part of my treatment ritual, I sit in an office waiting for a lab test, the beginning of a six hour chemo session, a radiation section, or some other fun thing. Even at eight AM, the room is always full of fellow patients undergoing the same battle. Point is, in most cases the person sits alone, or the parent/offspring separately read magazines, or the couple sits staring off in differed directions. But on occasion, just like in the hamburger joint, you witness the true blessing of the forgotten dimension between a man and woman, the eternal bond that transcends periods of suffering, pain, and sorrow.

Two rows across and to our right sat a senior couple discussing some piece of current events or family activity. With all the things going on in their new treatment focused world, they shared a constant smile as they held hands, pressed together tightly, not as two but as one spirit. Corny? Not to me. I looked down at my wife’s hand in mine while she too observed the couple. That element of relationships, the pure dependence of one’s emotional welfare on that of their soul mate, how often do you see it celebrated in todays secular driven productions out of Hollywood? No, they typically draw attention to alternative lifestyles, or single parenthood, or in/out shallow relationships. They can trivialize traditional romance, tell us it’s dead, try to convince themselves it never really existed, but they’re wrong.

For those blessed to have experienced the bond that never ends, you are a lucky couple. I know we are.

Later

Michael Davis (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 4/09