It was a Friday evening and she was heading home, while the
rest of the office was going out for drinks. She knew he’d be waiting and to
him there was no difference between a Friday and any other day. A once
strapping and dashing man, he was now no more than just a vegetable, a lean one
at that. His skin barely stretched enough to cover his bones, frail, weak and
pleasantly unaware. Yet she knew he understood things and still had feelings, so
the last thing she wanted was to disappoint him.
When she reached home, he was waiting for her in the balcony
with his slippers on and ready to go. While he could barely lift himself up
from the chair, he still insisted on wearing slippers whenever he had to go out
of the house. She rushed upstairs to leave her things and gave him a quick hug
before wheeling him out of the house. It was a gorgeous summer evening with
more people than usual at the park nearby. As she carted him around the park
there were friendly faces that said hello to him, faces who knew him for
decades, knew the man he used to be and knew him as he was now. Yet to him,
they were all strangers. He would ask each time about them and she would tell him every time about who
they were and of how he knew each one of them.
She wheeled him over to their usual park bench and as she
sat there, gently took his hands in hers and massaged his fingers and arms. She
did the same thing ever since she was a child and it was something he came to
expect whenever he was with her, a small service for a man who taught her
everything she knew. With no parents to raise her, he was pretty much
everything she had. At eighty five, he knew his time would come soon, and so
did she. But until then, every moment that she could spend with him was all she
ever wanted. She knew she could be out making friends, finding love and living
it up. But nothing made her happier than just sitting by his side, knowing how
much he looked forward to this time, everyday.
