Sixtyfourth Year

They were both young when they married. Both loved each other instantly. There was so much passion and love in their getting to know each other. He was a passionate man in everything he did, and in her soft spoken manner, she understood.

Children followed, and the singleminded passion branched off into family, home, career, and building futures. Through their goals, they stuck together. What one lacked, the other made up in plenty. They went through ups and downs with equanimity.

She was frailer in health than him, although her mental strength was exemplary. They supported each one with tenderness and understanding. She was ever patient, and often she tempered his impatient dynamism, turning it into an adult thing even though both of them were youthful.

To her, the family came first, and to him she was first. They loved each other for who they were, and not what they should be. They gave each other room to grow, although they were knit together.

Sixtyfour years, they saw their family extend, with children, grand, and great grand too. They were cosmopolitan in embracing a world culture, while their children fretted about choices. Their home was an umbrella against the pouring rain, and the two birds lived in eternal love.

He watched her health grow frail each passing year. He was there to monitor her blood glucose, her blood pressure, providing comforts as best as he could. He argued with the doctor over the dosage, for he had written her readings meticulously. The doctor had to admit his error, for his dosage was not something that worked on this patient.

Such was the man’s dedication, he even knew how her body responded.

The time came when she was critically ill. The children gathered around him, lending him the support he needed.

She was hospitalized in ICU, and everyone had given up hope. But, he wanted a ventilator attached to her. “She said she would be back, and she will be,” he said. No one had the heart to say otherwise.

The doctor mentioned that it was a final choice, and once the ventilator was on, they could not take it out, despite the condition she would be in. “What if she were to be in coma?” Would he like her to be in a vegetative state? It was a chance that had a heavy burden. He decided to take the chance despite advice not to.

The next couple of days, they took the ventilator out, and the first thing she said when she saw him was, “I love you my darling.”