“Like what?”
“Peaceful.”
She was right.
With Lauren, I had always tried to look younger.
With Emily, I was simply George.
On my seventy-fifth birthday, we had a small family dinner.
After everyone left, Emily stayed behind.
I took her outside to the patio.
There was a small ring in my pocket.
I did not even get down on one knee. My knees had retired from that kind of heroism years ago.
I simply took her hand.
“Emily, I can’t promise you fifty years.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I know.”
“I can’t even promise twenty.”
She squeezed my hand.
“George, nobody can promise anyone tomorrow.”
I looked at her.
“Then whatever time we do have… will you spend it with me?”
She smiled through her tears.
“Yes.”
Not in a huge hotel.
Not in front of hundreds of guests.
In the backyard of my home.
Sarah stood beside Emily.
Mike helped me tie my necktie.
Emily’s mother sat in the front row, healthy again.
When Emily walked toward me, she was not wearing some glamorous designer gown or trying to make everyone in the room look at her.
She wore a simple white dress.
And to me, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
Pregnancy & Maternity
This time, I did not marry because I was afraid of being alone.
I did not marry because having a younger woman beside me made me feel younger.
I married a woman with whom I never had to pretend to be someone else.
I am writing this post now at seventy-six years old.
Emily is in the kitchen.
She just shouted that if I refer to her as my “former housekeeper” one more time, she is personally going to shut down my Facebook account.
I told her I don’t even know the password.
She laughed.
And that laughter now fills the house that once felt so painfully empty.
People & Society
I have lived a long life, and only near the end of it did I understand one simple truth.
Love does not always arrive in the form other people think is appropriate.
Sometimes it comes in the form of the person everyone else overlooked.
And sometimes the woman who once walked into your study to save your life walks into that same room years later and asks,
“George, did you take your medication?”
Only now, I smile.
