The other day Mort and I were eating lunch in a restaurant. I idly watched an elderly couple exiting, the shuffling husband opening the door for his wife before offering her the crook of his elbow, into which she slipped her knobby hand , looking for all the world to see like a dainty bride on her wedding day. They very slowly made their way to their waiting car in the parking lot, where the husband opened his wife's car door on the passenger side, ensuring she was settled before gently closing it and getting himself in the driver's side.

It was such a lovely scene because they weren't yet so incapacitated by their body's betrayals that they had to lean on each other for support, nor were they loudly making an obnoxious show with their actions, hoping those around them would notice their display of love. Instead it was quiet and real and small, obviously everyday practices of kindness toward one another. Sure, it was possible that they had only recently found one another in their 80s and so still were in the first heady rush of love. But it seemed more likely that they had been together for well over half their lifetimes, that they had defied all the odds and still held fast to their love for one another, that even though to the world at large his wife may appear interchangeable with any elderly woman with cotton floss hair, to him she would always be the beauty he had married.

Perhaps it is a bit of sad commentary on our society that I was so moved by a couple's kindness toward one another, but it was a beautiful sight to see. We should all be so lucky to be so loved and cherished. I only wish I had seen their quiet acts of affection toward one another prior to their leaving. I would have liked to have anonymously paid their lunch bill to celebrate them for holding true where so many fail.