True Love

TRUE LOVE. So many these days think they know the meaning of true love. But do we really? We might say we do but I saw an example of TRUE LOVE the other evening at a restaurant while on a trip. We had gone in to try the food out and were sitting waiting for the waitress to come to our table. I saw an older man wheel his wife in and another waitress moved chairs out of the way to accommodate her chair.

You could tell she was to the stages of later Alzheimer’s. I could tell she had been a beauty in her younger years. Here she sat with an indifferent stare while he lovingly tended to get his wife just right. He made sure she was next to him and every so often he held her hand and brushed her hair back a bit while waiting on the waitress to come take their order all the while smiling and talking to her.

The woman just stared off in space and he talked to her pointing out different things to see around the place and once in a while she would make contact with him and he would just smile as if he had just stolen a few precious moments with her. The food came and he began to feed her as she couldn’t do it herself. She would chew and some food would fall out of her mouth but he would be right there to get it taken care of and wipe her mouth off and just kept talking to her, asking her how she liked everything. Again, he would put his hand on her shoulder or pat her hand as he would take bites of his own food.

Now to most in the place, they may have just seen an older man feeding an old woman and why would he bring her in a place and have folks look at them. What I saw was love. He didn’t look around at others to see if they approved or were making fun or staring…he was loving her. I thought of all the couples I saw in the restaurant and wondered how many would do that for their mate. How many would really take on the vow of loving for better and worse, sickness and health? Now days it’s hard to find that.

I noticed my husband, look over and then he looked back at me and gave my hand a squeeze, he saw what I saw too. Love like that is for real. I have told my children many times to think hard about a person they may date and started to get serious about. Would they see that person down the road loving them no matter what happened to them and vow to stand by them and take care of them?

Good question for many but I know I saw true love that evening.