Grow old with me…

I have always been a romantic I think. All my life, as far back as I can remember I have been slightly obsessed with the notion of love. My sister and I had countless “wedding” ceremonies with our white bed sheets as my gown and veil, and of course my dolls were my babies and I would religiously bathe and feed them without fail. Any way, my point is that I have always loved love, the whole idea of it. I had a great aunt and uncle, they’ve both gone to be with the Lord now but when they were alive, boy! Their love was lit.  My Uncle was in his late nineties and his wife was in her late eighties. He was blind and she was hard of hearing but they were still so in love it was so beautiful to watch.

One of the many highlights of my annual trip to the village was going to their house to just sit and bask in their love. Now, my aunt was a terrible cook, it was so hard to eat her meals with a straight face (if my mum or my sister reads this they’ll laugh so hard!) but yeah her food was bad. Despite the taste, you should have seen my uncle eating this food. He would eat everything and lavish praises on her telling her she was the best cook in the land, and even though he would have one of my cousins give him something else to eat later, he always ate her meals and praised her so loudly. I saw her sit on his legs countless times and though they were practically toothless, they still kissed so passionately. Eventually my uncle passed away at the ripe old age of 102 and he would tell all of us who cared to listen that the secret to his long life was God and his good wife. My aunt was so depressed after he died, she wouldn’t talk to anyone but him. She would go to his grave and sit there all day, under the sun and in the rain and tell him all about her day and only left his gave side when it was time for her to sleep. None of us were surprised when she followed him a few months later, peacefully in her sleep.

I hadn’t thought of my aunt and uncle in years until this evening when I saw this old couple on the bus. I couldn’t make out what they were saying but it was so clear that they were having a funny discussion because they kept laughing and when the old lady started crying from laughing too much, her husband used the tip of his tie to dab slowly at her eyes. She looked up at him and kissed him and my heart just melted, sigh… I couldn’t help myself so I asked them how long they’ve been married and the old lady smiled at me and said; fifty years today…

I thought about them as I walked back home, fifty years, wow! Goals, certainly. They didn’t live their lives on social media and post every little detail and gesture. They didn’t text instead of talking or post cryptic messages instead of admitting their true feelings, they did things the old school way and that’s the way I think it was always meant to be.

So Dear Future Husband, if you’re reading this: (yes, I realize how cheesy I sound) and I hope that you might be, let’s do our love the old school way, how I think things were always meant to be. Let’s laugh until we are old and toothless and embarrass our grand children with our public displays of affection, grow old with me…

“In my life I have found two things of priceless worth – learning and loving. Nothing else – not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake – can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say ‘I have learned’ and ‘I have loved,’ you will also be able to say ‘I have been happy.” – Arthur C. Clarke