Love In The Room

The waiting room is full of people coming and going for check-ups and x-rays. Most of them don't look like they feel well. My friend is there to see her M.D after her first round of chemo and radiation is finished. She is weak and fragile. The palms of her hands and bottoms of her feet are burned and peeling from the inside out. She smiles from the sunshine as we come through the door.

I have lots of time to people watch. One older couple in the corner sit and visit comfortably with each other. Smiles and tender touch hint at comfortable intimacy. He looks at her like she is the only woman in the world. This makes her beautiful.

Wanting to catch them before they go in to the inner sanctum, I go over and sit beside her. She moves her walker for me.

I ask if they are married.
"Sixty five years."
Do you have children?
"Five, but one died at 16 from a brain tumor, but it's OK, I know where he is."
How did you meet?
"I sang in the church choir in high school with his brother. When he came home on leave from the service, we met and married six months later."

I took her hand. With tears slipping down my cheeks, I told them they were a beautiful couple with a wondrous glow of love between them.

That morning had been a difficult one. Could have been the moon, my lunar cycle, circumstances, vitamin D deficiency, someone hacking an online account, whatever.......

But in that room of worry and sickness, despair and turmoil ~ a whisper surround sounded me ~ Love matters most. Then it echoed softly again ~ love matters most.   

As they tottered in to see their doctor, the wife waved at me and pointed with a glowing smile to the pretty nurse beside her.

"This is one of my daughters."

It does a body good to agree with that whisper. Love matters most.