Love Does Not Consist of Gazing at Each Other

“Life has taught us that loves does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”  Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900-1944) 

 

 “Valentine’s Day is Saturday,” my father remarked to my mother, “if you’ll give me the money, I’ll take you to Ricardos for lunch.”  Ricardos is their favorite restaurant  in Chico, California, where they have gone for the last 30 years whenever they want to make a celebration ‘special.’

 

“We’re not near Ricardos,” my mother explained, “we’re in Utah but we could go to Garcias.”  My father has dementia.  He and my mother moved into my Utah home a little more than two months ago.

 

He worried about how they would get there and Mom told him that I would probably drive them.  My father is blind from macular degeneration.  My mother has been driving them around for years but their car is back home in California and she can’t drive in the snow.

 

My mother has been searching the sale flyers and found that Albertson’s had the best buy on Valentine’s candy.  “I’d like to get a box of candy for Dad,” she announced, “he likes candy and It would be just for him-- he would enjoy that, and it’s a dollar off with the coupon.”  My mother came of age during the depression and has never wasted a penny since.

 

   My Dad can’t see her anymore and my Mom says sometimes she’s glad he can’t see her aging.  Sometimes my Dad can’t remember who she is and once that made her cry and he sat there and stroked her hair.   His sight is gone and is mind is failing but somewhere from deep inside his love for her surfaces and he wants to take her out for Valentine’s Day.  My parents have been married for more than 63 years.  It will be their last Valentine’s Day together.  My Dad is succumbing to lung cancer.

 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:

“I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death."  

(Sonnet 43)

 Love and marriage and families are not meant only for the short span of mortality.  Thanks be to God, our Father, they transcend the grave.