They were huddled right close together at the salad bar. Two peas in a pod among well...actual peas. They have probably been together in their lives longer than they have lived solo. Gray hair. Wrinkled hands with blue protruding veins. The ever telling stoop in their backs. The signs they have lived, really lived, life. However, still acting as if they would rather be nowhere than with each other picking out lettuce at a salad bar. Two peas in a pod.
Earlier tonight, as I watched that happy elderly couple from a distance, I felt bittersweet. Like when you put a lemonhead in your mouth, at first so sweet and then it packs that little punch. Watching that gray haired couple in their mismatched outfits loving on each other at the salad bar was sweet, of course it's always sweet to see love like that. To know that it can exist and it does exist. But then just like a lemonhead, there came a little punch.
The punch of missing the gray haired couple in their mismatched outfits that used to be a part of my life. I longed for Grandma and Grandpa Lee as I sat there being a voyeur to the two peas. Longed for them. A heart-aching wish to just be with them.
I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting old or what, but sometimes I have such an ache for the past. An ache for times gone by like going to spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa's without a worry in the world. And waking up in the morning only to crawl on the floor to the hallway where I would sit and listen to them eat their breakfast. It's like an imprint in my mind. The two of them sitting across from each other at their island visiting about the upcoming day. Quiet chitter chatter between slurping sips of coffee and scraping sounds of toast being buttered. A small part of me must have recognized, even in my youthful naivety, that what my eyes saw and my ears heard was special. Because everytime I stayed there, it was my little ritual to sit against the wall by the bathroom, cuddling my blanket that traveled with me everywhere, just watching and listening.
Watching and listening to those two peas in a pod.
Until one of them would notice me and I would run for my hugs. Dragging that blanket along with me.
1 comment:
I miss them too!
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