on: the power of love

I'm sitting in Aixois- one of my favorite Kansas City spots. It's lunch time on a dreary Saturday. I've been posted up working on a take-home final (sort of) and the lunch crowd is slowly filtering in. Among them is an elderly couple. A husband and a wife; the woman is beyond frail. She looks as though I could pick her up and cradle her like a baby. She eats her lunch awkwardly, messily, and slowly, with much assistance from her husband. Each helping hand to wipe her mouth is a gesture of absolute tenderness and grace. It turns out it's her birthday. The waitress brings out a creme brulee for her with a candle in it. Her husband blows out the candle for her and lets her have it all to herself. When she finishes, she shakily folds up her messy napkin and he pats her hand.

I can't stop watching their interactions. The simplicity of tenderness, the commitment of compassion, years passed, love grown. Time expensed past worldly beauty and independence- when only a deep love remains. A love that is beyond the understanding of those of us that are still young and beautiful. Mysterious and passionate, transcendent of our immature definitions of those things. Sweet silence and acceptance. The power of steadfast love.