True Love

While visiting my father in a nursing home, I watched an old couple in the dining room. The wife, slumped in a wheel chair, comatose; her eyes toward the ceiling; her mouth gaped open. Her husband fed her baby food with a trembling hand. He wiped off her lips with the spoon and a napkin.

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I read a story by a woman who told of meeting an eighty-year-old man. He said that he had to get to the nursing home to have breakfast with his wife, who had Alzheimer's disease. The woman was surprised at his loyalty--that he would return every day to a wife who no longer recognized him.

The old man told her, "She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is."

The woman thought: I had to hold back tears as he left, I had goose bumps on my arm, and thought: That is the kind of love I want in my life. True love is neither physical, nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.

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I know my wife would take care of me in such a condition. I would like to think I would do the same--but I feel trepidation...