Old Love

Young love is a beautiful thing.  I have a house full of kids oozing with heartfelt passions and dreams regarding their future mates, so I see plenty of “young love!”  Awhile back, the kids shared a sweet country song with me that outlined the stages of a relationship - meeting, falling in love, getting married - at the end of each verse the refrain claimed “it couldn’t get any better than  this.”  Yet it did as the next stage in love came along.  However, I was deeply disturbed, shocked even, when the song ended with the couple expecting a baby.  The start of the family is only the beginning, I thought.  There’s more to come, so much more, and it just keeps getting better, in fact a lot better, because “old love” is a beautiful thing too, just in different ways.  I suppose these different ways I’m thinking of don’t make for catchy lyrics but they are romantic, warm, and comfortable.

For the first time in a couple of decades my husband and I are often at home alone.  The kids are busy with school and work and friends and come and go all day long.  I was making us tea the other day when we realized the house was quiet, we were alone.  We sipped our tea in harmonious silence.  After 35 years together we’ve already said a great deal to each other so the quiet is very pleasant.  He thanked me for the tea and I thanked him for warming up my hands and he left me, still sipping, alone with my thoughts.  I started thinking about the little, kind things he does without me asking or even knowing he’s done them. Why?

Goethe said “the best parts of a good man’s life are his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.”  Simple, he’s a good man and he does them because he loves me.  Old love is a beautiful thing.
     I’ll keeping making his tea, he’ll keeping warming my hands and we’ll grow even older together.  It just doesn’t get any better than this!