Swiftly We're Turning

Today I walked into their room at the hospital. He lay there at the mercy of medical intervention. She stood by his side, tending to every need that she could address. They were in their nineties. She was sharply dressed and outwardly appreciative of a short visit for prayer and encouragement. I've met other elderly people like her. They have a lifetime of experiences and they know that time is short. They watch for a moment to slip a story into the conversation. They share the riches of their experiences generously. So she told me that they had been sweethearts since the first grade. Now how many people do you know that can tell a story like that? I think if I had a few hours to give her, she could have filled my mind with images of days gone by ... days with her wonderful companion. In our five minutes together she filled four of them with a small sliver of her story. Unknowingly she stroked his chest and his hair, and rested comfortably in her affection. Now that I think about it, I am blessed to know several aged couples who are not shy to express their love for one another. They hold hands like teenagers and they look at each other with eyes that drink in the beauty of another. Physical beauty has faded long ago. Evidence of the breakdown of the body is visible. But I think that when they look at one another they simply do not see it. Somewhere frozen in time is a photograph of their lover at the perfect moment. And when they look, they do not see the sagging skin, dark spots, wounds that are slow to heal, removable teeth, nor the wiry gray hair growing from nostril, ear, and brow. They do not see pants pulled up too high, socks that do not match, and suspenders that are twisted. They are oblivious to the makeup that is a bit too much ... a result of eyesight that isn't quite enough. Not every love story lasts from first grade to the grave. I want my love story to last all the way to the end. I want our days to be filled with the stories of our days together. I hope we are able to share a brightness and hope with younger couples who wonder if they will make it. I hope that Maggy and I will be old together and that we will enjoy those days with vigor and hope. I suppose that if that is what we want, then we are even now living the story that we will share in retrospect later. Every day pushes us closer to that time that seems so far away from now. The times ahead seem far away. When we look at time already past we recognize that we are not on a kindly merry-go-round, but a swift rollercoaster. Wherever you find yourself today, and with whomever you find yourself, use the time you have left to build a beautiful love story. It's challenging to a lunker like me ... but let's try. Maybe some of us will amaze someone who comes to visit us in our last days with some marvelous stories of life. "Swiftly we're turning life's daily pages, Swiftly the hours are turning to years."