What is love? If you’re as fortunate as I have been, you saw it in your parents. You think you know what it is through high school as you fall in and out of “love” with those that you date. Even though I thought I already knew what love was, November 29, 2014 came and I got to experience a lesson in true love through my grandparents in a hospice room surrounded by friends and family from all walks of life. To tell you that, though, I have to tell you a little bit about their story.
The story that we always knew as children was: my grandfather, a Marine, was stationed somewhere in Trinidad where he was set up on a blind date, met my grandmother, fell madly in love, got married, and brought her to the United States. Of course, we used to joke that he was her “green card,” but this truly was never the case.
Just a month before November 29, my grandfather was the sick one. As he and I devoured the chocolate she brought for him to eat in the hospital I told him “I hope you feel better soon.” Without skipping a beat he said, "I have to get better, I have her to take care of.” Then, my grandmother was seemingly perfectly healthy. At that moment, I wasn’t quite sure what he meant. To this day, I am convinced that they were and are each other’s saving graces. Not too long after, everything turned completely upside down for my family.
My grandfather took a turn for the better, but my grandmother took a turn for the worse. What once was remission was now a cancer that was as aggressive as ever; we were told we had six months with her. Six months turned to weeks and very quickly into just a week. As we came and went in the hospital, the one thing that remained constant was that my grandfather refused to leave my grandmother’s side for longer than a minute or two. The bar was set — he stayed by her side every single moment. He proved that in his vows when he said, “Till death do us part,” he meant it.
Friday, November 28, 2014 was the last time I got to experience that radiant love from my grandmother while she was awake. She never once stopped caring about everyone else — what we were doing for the upcoming week, what were our plans for Christmas, how school was, how our search for love was going, our friends, and most importantly: my grandfather’s wellbeing. When she fell asleep, I got to sit with my grandfather and listen to him talk about how he loved her so much. This was the first time that he explained why he never left her side: if she were to wake up he didn’t want her to think he had left her alone.
The very next day I got to hear my grandfather's story of how they met as I sat cross-legged on the hospice floor surrounded by family and friends who were all engulfed in their own side conversations and memories about my grandmother.
I watched his eyes light up as if it were still just him and her 55 years before. I couldn’t help but realize I was hearing one of the most important lessons that I would ever hear in my entire life.
“It was a blind date,” my grandfather said. “I took her to a club.” I smiled because I couldn’t picture my grandparents bumping and grinding like people do these days, forgetting that clubs were once classy.
“What kind of club did you go to?” I asked. His response was, “A jazz club on the military base.” I half laughed and cracked a joke asking him if he even knew how to dance. His only response was an incredulous look as if to say “Who DOESN’T know how to dance?!” followed by an “Of course, I know how to dance!” He proceeded to tell a story about how this woman, no more than 100 pounds soaking wet, sat on his lap in a chair and broke it. I joked that she fell for him the night they met. He laughed. I’m not sure how much longer it was after they met that they got married, all I know is that they got married in Trinidad without permission from my grandfather’s Marine higher-ups. “If the Marines wanted you to have a wife, they would’ve issued you one,” my grandfather said in the midst of his story. He continued to tell me how he could’ve gotten in more trouble, but instead they sent him home to the United States without my grandmother and that she would follow nearly a year later.
The year that went by found my grandmother working hard to come to a foreign country, become a citizen of that country, and live a life with the love of her life. Four sons, four daughter-in-laws, five granddaughters, four grandsons, and one great grandson, countless of other relatives, friends, and "adopted" family members later she was surrounded by love as my grandfather told me the story of their love. I caught myself hoping that one day I would be lucky enough to have the love of my life love me so much that not even for a moment would I be left alone during the end of my days. Someone I could love back so much that not for a moment would I leave their side during the end of their days. Someone I would recognize without even needing to open my eyes. That’s when he said it. While I was lost in thought, my grandfather’s voice broke the white noise of my mind and he said one of the most beautiful things about love that I will ever hear all the while looking over my head at my grandmother:
“We’ve had a good life together. I didn’t say easy, but it’s been good. We’ve had our share of problems, but nothing that couldn’t be worked out. Everything can always be worked out.”
He didn’t say easy. He said good. They had 55 years full of love and happiness. Though I never heard any stories of hard times about their marriage from either of them, I know that every marriage has bad days, but like my grandfather said: everything can always be worked out. The last week of her life, I saw true love as my grandfather put his hearing aids in to listen to her (when she complained for so many years before about how he needed to wear his hearing aids), sat by her bedside for endless hours, continued to joke and laugh with her, calm her in her most anxious moments, and made sure she was as comfortable as could be. Fifty-five years worth of love summed up into a week’s time. Summed up in four sentences:
“We’ve had a good life together. I didn’t say easy, but it’s been good. We’ve had our share of problems, but nothing that couldn’t be worked out. Everything can always be worked out.”
That is love. Pure, unconditional, “till death do us part,” unadulterated, true love and I’m lucky to have witnessed a love like this. One day my grandfather will leave us to join her and I know he will greet his beautiful bride the same exact way he did 57 years ago. Until then, we are all here to celebrate that sort of true love with him.
