My parents were married for 55 years. One morning, my mom was going downstairs to make dad breakfast, she had a heart a.tt@ck and fell. My father picked her up as best he could and almost dragged her into the truck. At full speed , without respecting traffic lights, he drove her to the hospital.
When he arrived, unfortunately she was no longer with us.
During the fun3ral, my father did not speak; his gaze was lost. He hardly cried.
That night, his children joined him. In an atmosphere of p@in and nostalgia, we remembered beautiful anecdotes and he asked my brother, a th3ologian, to tell him where Mom would be at that moment. My brother began to talk about life after d3ath, and guesses as to how and where she would be.
My father listened carefully. Suddenly he asked us to take him to the cem3tery.
“Dad!” we replied, “It’s 11 at night, we can’t go to the cem3tery right now!”
He raised his voice, and with a glazed look he said:
“Don’t argue with me, please don’t argue with the man who just lost his wife of 55 years.”
There was a moment of respectful silence, we didn’t argue anymore. We went to the cem3tery, we asked the night watchman for permission. With a flashlight we reached the t0mb. My father caressed her, prayed and told his children, who watched the scene moved:
“It was 55 years… you know? No one can talk about true love if they have no idea what it’s like to share life with a woman.”
He paused and wiped his face. “She and I, we were together in that crisis. I changed jobs …”, he continued. “We packed up when we sold the house and moved out of town. We shared the joy of seeing our children finish their careers, we mourned the departure of loved ones side by side, we prayed together in the waiting room of some hospitals, we support each other in p@in, we hug each Christmas, and we forgive our mistakes… Children, now it’s gone, and I’m happy, do you know why?
Because she left before me. She didn’t have to go through the agony and p@in of b*rying me, of being left alone after my departure. I will be the one to go through that, and I thank God. I love her so much that I wouldn’t have liked her to suffer…”
When my father finished speaking, my brothers and I had tears streaming down our faces. We hugged him, and he comforted us, “It’s okay, we can go home, it’s been a good day.”
That night I understood what true love is; It is far from romanticism, it does not have much to do with eroticism, or with s3.x, rather it is linked to work, to complement, to care and, above all, to the true love that two really committed people profess “.