For this life I am grateful...

This time next week I would have been married for 41 years to this grandmother whom I fist met when I was 21 and she 23 at this disco call Tiffany in London. By the way it is okay to be married to a grandmother when you are yourself are a grandfather – as I am! It has been a good marriage. Many ups and downs but we have been together through it all. Two wonderful kids – Zack and Terrina and one amazing son-in-law – Emmett (who has made the transition from being a member of that group Butterfingers to being a responsible and loving husband and father with flying colours!) and two grand daughters Isabel and Sofie –the lights of all our lives!

ISABEL

SOFIE

We are both a bit frayed, worn, torn and tattered around the edges but nothing that a little bit of love won’t fix.

A few days back I asked my wife if she knows how old people fall? I told her that old people fall down like a sack of potato – once they are unbalanced they just fall down in a heap like a sack of potato. They are not agile enough to try and re balance themselves before the fall starts to get beyond the “able to recover” stage and they do not try to reach out to anything to prevent them from falling –they are just not able to do so fast enough and they know it – so they do not even try!

Once they are unbalance they just fall down in a heap. She looked at me and smiled indulgently at my description of how old people fall. I told her that I know it was like that because I have fallen down three times in just as many weeks recently. And every time I fell it was like a sack of potatoes falling down! I guess you old people out there know what I am talking about!

My wife is getting lazy. She tells me that after a lifetime of cooking and doing household chore she wants out! We have never had servants to help us except for one time when we were in Bangsar Permai – and that too on a part time basis  -and we certainly can’t afford it now. And so I do what I can to make up for it. Sometimes I complain but I get help from my son too – so between the two of us we make up for the slack from my wife. So again for those of you who are over 60 – we all adjust to the situation. It’s nothing to bitch about or to complain about. Who knows what you yourself will stop doing next week. Just as long as you do not stop breathing you know your better half will be there for you.

What I am grateful about is that we still enjoy each other’s company more then any body’s else. So we can sit down and be happy even if all we have is each other! You do not even need to talk to each other. Now how wonderful is that!

The other day my wife was having problems getting out of the bath and I had to help her out. I did make the comment that now I have an invalid on my hands. She got back at me by saying that pretty soon I will NOT BE VALID – if I go on making those kind of comments about her!

I see that in the two of us, growing old means putting on weight for my wife and losing weight for me. I go to sleep early and wake up early, my wife goes to sleep late and wake up very late. And we forget things! Which is okay for my wife because she wants to forget that she is married to me once in a while – it is a blessing for her to forget that. For me it is a case of trying to figure out why she is still married to me.

The longest I have ever had a job that paid me a monthly salary was less then two years  - all the other times I worked for myself paying myself never enough. The longest we have ever stayed in a house, a state or a country is probably almost three years. When I tell myself that we are now going to go back to KL or anywhere else “for good” – “for good” means at most three years. At least twice we have moved countries with one weeks notice! And at least three times we have started life in a different country with less money then what you would need to keep body and soul together for more then one week. So that is why I am still trying to figure out why she is still married to me. 

Between the two of us we have lived in at least 50 homes in three countries, seven cities and have at least gone through 60 cars changes. And if that is not enough I cannot remember the last time we have sat down to have a meal together –unless you count sharing a dinner plate at KFC yesterday is having a meal together...but through all this we are still together!

We know we are in the twilight of our lives but stars are still shining brightly in the night skies and the moon will be out again tomorrow night. We still do smile at the shortcomings of each other. I am getting hard of hearing and her memory is slowly deserting her – but together we make a good life for each other. There will still be, hopefully, many more years to come of being together and enjoying each other company…if not que sera, sera! 

As I write this closing lines my wife is in the living room probably watching Desperate Housewife or some sitcoms – pursuits I simply do not enjoy-while I am in doing what I enjoy best – writing for my blog on my laptop, on my bed, in my room with our cat, Lea, sleeping beside me. I wish for those of you growing old gracefully with your wife or husband of many years to have the same love and happiness that my wife and I have had for each other for the last 41 years…may there be many more of those years to come for you all and for us too.

My sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and then she has to go out and buy herself some new ones!