He, even in the 40th year of marriage, could not fall in love with his wife. Everyone looked at her with envy. In the 70s, when this was rare in society, everyone was surprised by the relationship between the two lovers.
Then he was young and could not take his eyes off his beloved. He treated her so reverently that it was visible and noticeable even to strangers.
He never pretended to be cute and fluffy, as some people do: in front of friends they pretend to be crazy about their partner, and in their absence they drink each other’s blood.
He actually loved his wife without pretense. He always treated her like a princess, even now when they were both over 70.
His love was the most genuine that can be in the world, without a drop of pretense and benefit. He cooked delicious breakfasts for his wife, read to her when she couldn’t, took her to her favorite plays, even though he hated the theater. He even learned to ride a bicycle, because his beloved loved this feeling when the cool air hits your face with a velvet plume, and your heart jumps out of your chest with pleasure and fear.
He could always sense when she was feeling unwell. He knew if her hands were colder than usual, she had to eat chocolate, otherwise a headache was inevitable.
– Darling, take a break for a minute and have some lunch. I put everything in your bag in the container. I’m waiting for your feedback, bon appetit.” – he called his wife, knowing that she always forgot to have lunch at work.
The end of such a fairy tale is the same: two lives together in peace and harmony and leave together… But life is not a fairy tale.
Suddenly, at dusk, the roar of car brakes near the pedestrian crossing was heard. He received a brain injury and was in a coma for a long time. Doctors could not say anything. With each passing minute, they lost hope that he would come out of the coma. But a miracle happened. He woke up.
He learned everything from scratch. Even how to walk. After some time he returned home. All his friends and relatives came to congratulate him on this event.
And what about her? She realized in the hospital that he would be gone. She did not know how to describe in words the strange feeling that overwhelmed her. It was as if he had become his own alternative personality. He became selfish, less caring, highly conflicted and weak in his relationships with friends. He could make a scandal out of nothing. He lived without thinking about others. And so for several long years.
One morning he woke up, anxiously looked around the room in which he had been waking up for over 40 years and asked with tears in his eyes:
– Where am I?
Since then, the problems have worsened. He perceived only simple, short sentences. In half an hour he would forget that he had already had lunch, for example, and return to the kitchen, staring at the TV screen for hours, not understanding what was happening there.
But she did not let go of her hands. She took her husband to doctors, but they did not know how to help, because in such cases medicine is powerless. MRI showed that dementia is not far away. Now it was her time to take care of her husband. She took care of her husband, he accepted courtship.
Every time she salted her husband’s soup, he looked at her with a suspicious look, suspecting that his wife wanted to poison him, then she tiredly showed him the inscription “Salt” on the package.
Still, I believe this is a story of true, time-tested love. If you ask me, a family psychologist, what love is, I will tell them this story, because love is something more than shared happiness and understanding.
