I read about a couple who had been married a long time. Since they only had one photo from their wedding, they elected to do a p
hoto shoot
for their sixty first anniversary. The theme was the Pixar movie Up. Passersby were touched by the sweetness of the moment on a bridge, and the photographer was moved to tears as she zoomed in on their wrinkled hands.
The plot follows Carl and Ellie who have a tender friendship of seventy years, and his grief after she dies. Forced to relocate to a retirement home, Carl tethers enough balloons to the chimney to float away to Paradise
Falls.
Carl is a grump. Yet when I remember his loss, it is understandable. His wife of an entire lifetime was gone. He had grounds for grumpiness.
The other day I had a conversation with a man I have known all my life. I was feeling friendly but his words was terse. He seemed brusque. As I turned away I recalled that his wife, the mother of their seven children, had died ten years before. In that light, brusqueness seemed like a
reasonable attitude.
John and I have been together only half as long as Carl and Ellie. It is beyond my comprehension to picture what it would be like to wake up to an empty bed, to sit across from an empty chair, to wait in a silent room. Maybe I will be grumpy too.
But then we are planning to float away to Paradise.
