"Do you know where my wife is?"
His loud voice startled me.
I shook my head and said I didn't,
afraid that I already did.
He sat in the middle of the hallway,
his shrill whistle made me look again
as he got the attention of the nurses:
"Where's Ima? Where's my wife?"
He grew impatient and urgent.
They glanced at each other warily;
"I just told him two minutes ago."
The whisper made me dread the answer
as he rolled his wheelchair closer,
his grey hair combed neatly, his one leg left missing.
(A war wound? Disease?)
He yelled louder for her still,
and I felt an ache inside.
"I told you," one kindly answered,
leaning over him in his shiny chair,
"she's not here now."
His mind wasn't his own anymore,
and I wondered whose it was.
His heart recalled things
which his mind could not;
but absent as he was,
his Ima was there.
I tried to walk out before
I'd hear what they would say:
"...I told you, honey. Your wife..."
I wanted to cry as I feared they would say,
would have to tell him, again...
"...is at a doctor's appointment."
I sighed with relief.
I thought he should be relieved too;
she'd be back very soon.
But I heard him yell from behind me,
his every two minutes a panick, booming:
"Where is Ima? Where's my wife?"
***
I can't imagine what it would feel like, to not remember my life anymore. My memory has been lapsing a bit the last few months and I dislike it. Granted, my memory has been strangely keen throughout my young life, but I've missed it when it drops a piece of information here and there. Passing the gentleman mentioned above at the nursing home last week really gripped me. His memory was gone; yet not completely. And I wanted to cry when I realised his mind had dropped the hows, whys, whens, & wheres... but not the 'who'. I heard in that 30 seconds of conversation between him, me, & the nurses everything I needed to know about him and his wife: they love each other, undyingly. Even when minds slip and bodies fall apart, he didn't forget her. He couldn't. His heart was right where it had been the day he married her. And it would stay that way.
Old age is strange to me. I see deteriorated people, and I constantly have to remind myself that they were young once just like me: with minds that were vibrant & quick, and bodies that were limbre & agile. They never used to repeat themselves over and over, or say odd things that people snicker at. Their hands used to be able to grasp their teacups without a thought, and they could walk hand in hand with the love of their life for miles without thinking how their knees can't take it or how each others' fingers can't intertwine because of too much pain.
I feel unsettled when I see old age. It doesn't scare me, but it just doesn't fit. And I realise, that isn't what was meant to be. God never had it in the plans to let us fall apart in the end. But it's part of the Fall; part of what we brought on ourselves. But I wonder; why do so many fall so hard in the end? And why do some claim it so willingly? Last week, I heard one older lady ask another how she was, and the response was, "Old. I'm old." The other said, "That's what you always say! Don't say that!" to which the second replied: "But I am old. With a body like mine, deteriorating? It's only a matter of time." And I cringed. I could never bring myself to ever think of the end continuously; to speak death over me. Yet some do.
Last week, I was beside a cemetary at a church, and one of the tombstones caught my eye: it was half a tombstone, half a bench. The stone was enscribed with the couple's names, and the names of their 8 living children. It said, something to the extent of, "They lived and laughed and loved; they loved their family. They lived to the fullest and enjoyed every day. So come, sit and enjoy the view and fall in love with your life just as they did when they lived."
Again, I wanted to cry. It was one of the most joyous and hopeful inscriptions, but still, my heart went straight to my life and the end; more, the ends of the lives around me. I don't mind leaving this world so much, but when I think of living it without those I dearly love, I break. (It's the one thought that brings into focus who I care most about, every time.) Yet I know, that even in the end, I want to have lived a life (and lived alongside lives) that have lived to the fullest, spoken life into each other, and aimed to redeem what has been lost. Age will come, its strangeness irreversible, but the Hope inside the Life that does not end with age is something to bring youth, joy, and vibrancy even to the oldest of people. But even though every two minutes might still bring the panick of, "Where's my wife?" I have to learn to see the hidden gladness inside even the heaviest trials: every two minutes, he might get concerned, but every two minutes he gets to smile with the new revelation that she's returning all over again.
I do not look forward to being aged, but I do look forward to the depth of life I will know and the love that I will hold through it all. There will always be something to be discovered, always something to learn, always something to remember, and always something to live for, come what may.
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