Love and Lunch

    He brought me lunch. He loves me. He brought me a root beer. He loves me. He brought my favorite jalapeno kettle chips. He loves me. 

    When you’ve been married as long as we have – more than half our lives – it is the little things that count. Yesterday, my husband of 24 years brought me lunch. He could have brought me a hundred pink roses and it would have the same effect. We sat in the warm sunlight on the back patio and ate this luxurious repast, which was a roast beef sandwich from Roger’s Market. It may as well have been ambrosia and nectar for how it made me feel.
    We married one July afternoon, in Southern California, too young to buy alcohol but old enough to vote. Idealistic and romantic, we tied the knot so that it would never get untied again. We held fast to each other in times of stress and the kinds of difficulties that you can’t escape, even with a full tank of gas. If you think children only add joy to a marriage, try having one or two. Children take the equation of one plus one and put in some exponents and square roots until your simple sum looks like quantum physics. Still, we survived the pressures of parenthood, endured lost jobs and career changes, persisted through remodeling projects and remained steady in our relationship.
    If only I knew of some secret – a nugget of marital wisdom to pass along and offer as proof, but alas there is no mysterious ingredient to being in love and staying that way. But if you’ll think backwards and forward to the thing that brought you together, therein will lie the key to longevity in a relationship. For us it is the “date”, the special moment in time when you are in the middle of it all, and even the very sun appears to revolve around you.
    For us it is taking periods out of the ordinary time and making them special occasions – like the time we went away to a quaint German-influenced town in Texas and lived for two days in a guest house with nothing on our minds or agendas but each other. Or the time we took a cruise to the Bahamas and ran down the ship’s gangplank at eight in the morning to sit on a deserted white-sand beach, feeling the rays of the sun cross the water, and wanting only to preserve that very moment. Or having a surprisingly simple lunch on the sun-warmed patio.
    These are the moments we will remember when we are just an old couple, with white hair and wrinkly faces, wearing tennis shoes with dress socks, and walking down the street holding hands. Love is a funny thing. If the intoxication doesn’t drown you, the ecstasy might.

This piece "Love and Lunch" originally appeared as part of my weekly column in the Hamilton/Morrisville Tribune in 2006. 

First thing to go is the memory

    I was about to leave my office for the afternoon when I heard a man's voice in the distance, moaning, "Oh nooo... Oh my god, awwwhhhh, oh no..." I ignored it at first, but then the voice returned, "Oh god, arrrwwwhhh... it happened again."
    Working as I do in an elder living facility, that kind of utterance doesn't usually end well. I walked out into the hallway and tried to listen for the direction the voice was coming from. Up the stairs and down the hall. I heard a baleful pronouncement once again, "Ohhhh nawww..."
    I walked rather slowly up the stairs. I probably should have bounded up but not knowing what was up there, I didn't really want to skid into some kind of real misfortune. Halfway down the hall stood Harold. He was standing up, not laying in a crumpled mess like he'd fallen. There was no sign of blood or other infirmity. He just stood there looking at his door. "Ahhhh... I'm locked out..." he said shaking his head. 
    After more than a year in "the biz" I never leave my office without my cell phone in one hand and my keys in the other. I quickly produced my Master Key - the one that can solve about a quarter of the problems that I encounter, and proceeded to unlock Harold's door for him. He clutched a bundle of mail that looked like he hadn't checked his mailbox in a while and pieces fluttered to the floor as he walked in and set them down on the table. He shook his head disconsolately and muttered under his breath about where he could possibly have left his keys.
    He apologized profusely and said it was his birthday. "I guess now that I'm seventy-five, I'm going to start forgetting things," he quipped, a bit sarcastically. Harold lives at Madison Lane Senior Living Community but the dude works nearly full time as a church caretaker, has a razor-sharp wit and a goofy smile. He is hardly the epitome of premature aging. 
    I began to think of the days I've had when nothing seems to work right, when I forget important things, and then that final straw serves to crush my spirit. I could tell that Harold was having one of those days. And it was his birthday. Though he lived alone, I knew that he had a few friends and family nearby. The kids at the church school had all drawn him little birthday cards, which he held carefully in his hand.
    A couple of minutes later, Harold passed by my office rattling his keys. He'd left them in the door of his mailbox, likely distracted by the bundle within. He had already laughed off the mishap and his feeling of dismay. The goofy smile was back.
    Each new day comes with a reset button. All that happened yesterday is in the past and there exists a new opportunity to improve upon what has gone before. Sometimes, you just keep walking and don't look back. Other times, you can smooth over the cracked bits and refuse to let them bring you down. Sometimes memory lapses aren't so bad, I guess.