A whole lifetime
A whole time together
“Will you love me like you did back then?” the woman asked him, with a look of sadness and disappointment. They’d just had a disagreement over an everyday, trivial matter—something very, very small by their standards.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” he asked, sensing that things would get better. He already knew his wife’s answer, after all. They’d been married for over 40 years.
“Of course!” she replied, and immediately the sadness and disappointment vanished from her lips. From her mind. From her very being.
On the street, they walked like a newlywed couple. Hand in hand, with patience and perseverance, slowly but surely. You see, their physical condition didn’t allow them to go any faster. But they still had the fire of youth—the one that set them apart from the rest of the crowd.
Little by little, they made their way to the beach. The sun was warm, but not too hot. The sea was pleasant, yet refreshing, and the surroundings were quiet since it was still early in the morning.
Smiling, the man picked a flower from a bush and offered it to her with generosity and emotion. The woman didn’t respond, but she felt as if she were 18 again, when she had married him. Or somewhere around that age, anyway, because even though 40 years had passed, she had actually lost track of time. Her life had been, for the most part, devoted to and given to him.
She took the flower, smiled like a little girl, and then looked up at the sky: “Do you think they can hear us?” she asked with a sadness that had reappeared on her wrinkled face.
“They're definitely listening to us, my love,” the man replied, and then tried to hold back his tears for his unborn children. Don't get me wrong. They had two handsome, strong sons and a sturdy, independent daughter. But in those difficult, lonely years, without medical advice, they couldn’t be sure of what to do in the event of a miscarriage.
Then they sat on a bench and gazed out at the open sea. The sea, actually, which was calmer and in no mood for much mischief today. The little park they usually went to was empty, so they took advantage of the time to talk about this and that, even though they seemed to have said it all many years ago.
“Will you love me like you did back then?” the woman asked again, though she already knew the answer. She just wanted his reassurance, just like back then. When they were young. They’d been through occupation, poverty, loss, and upheaval. Their children had moved abroad. Two to Italy and the other to the Netherlands. Their home, that little refuge in the city’s most historic and oldest neighborhood, reminded them of another past.
But the man didn’t answer again. He just smiled. And then, he suggested they sit on a bench. And once they were seated, he pointed out the sea to her.
“Do you remember back when Makis was little and couldn’t walk?” he said, with a touch of nostalgia for those years, but also sadness. “Do you remember when Viki packed up all her things and went to the Netherlands without asking us?” he asked her.
And after receiving affirmative answers to both questions, he said to her, “Just as the sea is silent and listens, yet at the same time embraces everything and loves it, so too will I love you and accept you exactly as you are.”
And the woman, moved, asked him, “Shall we go get some ice cream?”
And he, after playing hard to get at first, agreed. It was early summer, after all. And before the first heat had even really set in, they found themselves inside their favorite gelateria, as their sons used to call it.
Because that was their life. A whole life filled with love, pain, bittersweet moments, but also a great, great deal of human effort. Because, in the end, that was their story. What they had built. And no one—or nothing—could tear it down. Not anymore. Except for death. But even that wasn’t certain...
*Any resemblance to the product shown in the photograph is purely coincidental, as the text is a work of fiction.
