John and I went out to dinner with two couples, and between courses I saw each of them tuck their hands into each other's for safekeeping. 

A husband who is himself wheelchair bound described caring for his wife who had eye surgery. She was in pain and had to keep her head down, yet he found ways to reassure her. When they went in for the procedure he prayed for a miracle. With the expectancy of a believer he looked for signs. As it turned out two of the attending nurses were named Mary and Joseph. Bingo. Another was (almost) the same name as their new granddaughter. He felt safe in the promise that his wife would recover.

Hours later I saw a husband and wife at the bedside of his mother who was in the last stages of hospice. They told stories about this frail grandmother, who canned ninety jars of her own tomato sauce months before the stroke that left her voiceless. Their tenderness with each other and the mother they shared a lifetime with was exquisite.

The tears caught up with me on the drive home. To be in the shadow of longtime marriage is holy ground. While my knee jerk response is to want to skate past health issues, and outsmart the erosion of en elderly body, it was the opening for compassion to enter. Maybe there is a way to ripen a relationship without suffering. But then again maybe there isn't.