LOVE

Sometimes working on an Oncology ward, you get to see the most beautiful simple demonstrations of love. A wife of 50 + years caring for her husband, smoothing out the pain wrinkles between his eyes, lying beside him when he is in pain, making him laugh, singing favorite hyms… death truly can be a beautiful thing. And love in its simplest forms stirs even a hardened heart. Today at work, my heart felt hard. I was irritable and impatient; but I felt my heart melt as I watched this wife care and speak the physical language of love to her husband. How can one not look on and wonder at the love between a man and a woman? Though I am sure they have had struggles and have hated one another at times. And though sometimes the husband gets impatient with the motherly like questions his wife asks while he is here, love is evident and has sustained them. What a gap for this woman when her husband finally passes. The person she has woken up to every morning, shared her concerns about life with, cried with, laughed with, played with, discovered, created… her steady companion who knows her better than anyone else on earth will soon be gone from this life. What tragedy and yet beauty for it proves true that one can truly stick together come sickness or health.