Bite Sized World

Visiting my grandparents last night brings on some simply intricate thoughts.

I love them very much, and their relationship rearranges so many of my firmly placed views that involve love and just the process of aging. 

She wakes up early and reads the local paper. She sips her coffee and smiles as she passes the refrigerator doors that are filled with pictures of her grandchildren, christmas cards, and decade old clippings of their favorite sayings and comics, Family Circus and Snoopy. There is no need to make more coffee, there is plenty for both of them. 

He scruffily stretches as he pulls the sheets unevenly yet crisply to one side of the bed. He knows his effort, not his perfection, is admired. He arranges the pillows the same as how he placed them the morning before and shuffles down the hall to sit next to her for their breakfast. 

She warms the toast and cuts a plate of tomatoes. He fixes his cup of coffee, black in his favorite light blue mug with "#1 Dad" inscribed across the front of it which She set out on the counter for him the night before. 

They are living and breathing within themselves and through each other. They have molded their waking up, their mornings, their routines to compliment one another. As much as they tease and bicker between themselves, they find each other synchronized, yet not in a meticulous, rigid way. They are acts that pull, stretch, strengthen, and weaken their heartstrings. The heart's beat is not her own nor his own, but their own. 

Their hands are are weathered and tired, yet soft and strong. And although wrinkles and creases fill every loose patch of skin, their green eyes light up with joy and love as they tell a corny joke, even if the teller has to repeat it again for the other to hear. They laugh at their age and she always reminds him that it's just a number. 

Getting the mail, taking out the trash, and going to the office have become tasks of the day which are very important to him. She has decided to keep up with the times, so she checks her email and plays some computer games. She bickers a little as she sweeps up the bit of dirt he brought in from watering his garden the day before...

As we grow older, our worlds shrink. The little things become the big things. The big things, the money, the place in society, the chaos, the THINGY things, just seem to melt into the walls. 

Perhaps for us, we have some tranquility to look forward to as we age in time. 

In our world, although it might seem lost, love is still alive.