Carl and June are the oldest couple at our church. They’ve been married for sixty-eight years. He is ninety, and she just turned eighty-nine. She can’t hear, and has trouble moving around on her own; he drives her around town and links their arms when they need to get from place to place.
They met in 1945, when they were both in eighth grade. Their last names were one letter apart, so she sat behind him. “I never would have graduated if it wasn’t for her,” he said.
I wonder what it’s like to know someone in that many ways.
Tag: love
Day 30: Bedroom
If that’s you, in a different bedroom,
In a city with different night-sounds,
If that’s you, glaring sightless until the
Ceiling creates the footbridge,
If that’s you I hear, heels clicking on stone,
Or wood, or iron, or slipping over muddy turf,
If that’s you, tasting the drop of
Whiskey left in my glass, licking the sharp feather
Of desire on my shoulder,
If that’s you, with snow on your lip
And word-pearls in your pocket,
Then I’ll let it be;
My cat will leap over your reckless ghost,
Believing he was tricked,
And land soundless on the bedroom floor.
Day 19: At Eighty
One of my favorite things to do is drive grandmothers around.
They’re not my grandmothers, of course, who are both long gone. But they are someone’s.
I open the passenger door for them, though they fuss at me not to. I turn on the heated seats and I help with the seatbelt, which can be cranky. I drive slowly, giving us room.
Questions I’d like to ask are: Who loved you most? Who did you love most? Who did you wish to love that you couldn’t?
I don’t ask, of course. But somewhere, lodged underneath their words, are the answers.
Cynthia Hamill 