Priorities...

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.