A story of elderly love

Never take love for granted

A very poor man lived with his wife.
One day, his wife, who had very long hair asked him to buy her a comb for her hair to grow well and to be well-groomed.
The man felt very sorry and said no. He explained that he did not even have enough money to fix the strap of his watch he had just broken.
She did not insist on her request.
The man went to work and passed by a watch shop, sold his damaged watch at a low price and went to buy a comb for his wife.
He came home in the evening with the comb in his hand ready to give to his wife.
He was surprised when he saw his wife with a very short hair cut.
She had sold her hair and was holding a new watch band.
Tears flowed simultaneously from their eyes, not for the futility of their actions, but for the reciprocity of their love.

MORAL:
To love is nothing, to be loved is something
But to love and to be loved by the one you love, that is EVERYTHING.
Never take love for granted.

Reflections

As couples grow old, a lot of changes take place in their physical and mental status. They tend to become easily irritated and angry with the spouse for trivial reasons often not realizing they were reacting in that way.

As they reach their sixties and seventies or if they are lucky may be eighties, their fights or quarrels are not because of money, power or beauty but because of their physical and mental inadequacies. Physical inadequacies include lack of energy, sickness, disappointments especially with their children and failures in life. They feel young but unable to do what they used to do when they were young. This makes them irritable and angry more with themselves than with their spouses.

Mental inadequacies include loss of memory, forgetfulness, talking inappropriately and repeating same things over and over again. Another important factor is loss in independence, not being able to do what they want for themselves.

All these create a lot of friction and irritation to the couples, especially if one is much younger than the other. The strange thing is despite the frequent fights and quarrels, the love for each other remains strong as one cannot be without the other for too long.

The lesson for us from this story is never to take each other’s love for granted especially as we grow old and sickly. Children come and go, siblings come and go, grandchildren come and go, relatives and friends come go but the spouse remain till the end often only death brings them apart. 

 

There may be so many ways to overcome the differences and feeling of anger towards the spouse when they are old but the best is what I call “Hug Therapy”. A hug is all that may be needed to cool things down. Yes, a hug helps to cure all the problems, it softens your heart and cools your anger. Try it the next time you get irritated and angry with your spouse and you may be surprised with what it can do.