In Sickness and In Health

A few weeks ago I had a doctor's appointment at a large Boston hospital. After the appointment we went down to the cafe for lunch. As we sat there I watched people coming and going. Doctors relaxing between appointments. Nurses laughing with colleagues. Sales reps trying to convince a doctor that they had a superior product that the hospital should buy. But what I noticed most where the patients and their families. In various stages of illness my fellow patients came for refreshment. A man who had clearly had a stroke, an old man in a wheel chair, a woman who needed assistance walking, a young woman who looked incredibly sad amongst others.

I watched these people and thought that perhaps the best test of love is to be shown what the future holds and asks of each of us and those whom we love. Before the engagement, in the first bloom of love, we should, perhaps, take a walk through a hospital cafe. Before we accept the wedding rings and the applause of family and friends we should take another walk. This one more slowly and with the bloom of infatuation gone. We should listen to the conversations between the husband and wife who are trying to win the war against cancer; to the old woman who suffers from kidney disease and her husband of forty eight years; to the young woman who watches her children play as she tries to swallow after thyroid surgery; to the woman left alone because she got ill and her partner could not deal with it; to the parent trying to comfort the child.

It is easy to be with someone when everything is going well. When bills can be paid and there is food on the table and money to buy a nice coat life is easier than when there is illness and doubt. Care givers are asked to undertake a lot. They have to deal with doctors and nurses, with the patient and family. They have to spend time doing things for their husbands and wives that they never contemplated having to do. It is much more difficult to love someone when they are weak and afraid and clinging to you then when they are able to stand by themselves. Holding a hand of a lover whom you can't hug because it hurts them is heart breaking. Being unable to be intimate because it hurts your beloved is anguish to a lover. Not knowing what the next week brings when you want to plan for a vacation in six months can make one feel hopeless.

It is those times which show us what our relationships of made of. When we lie next to our spouse and hold them because they need us. When we tell a joke but we really want to weep. When we offer a hand because they are unsteady, and rub feet because they are painful, when we help them up when they have fallen - these are the times that the diamond rings and softly whispered vows are really all about. When the sun disappears and the day seems endless is when the marriage vows are tested. It is then that we have to look to ourselves to see of what we are made. Do we fold our hand and announce that we can no longer play? Do we walk into some one else life and walk away from what we had and could have in the future? Do we stand to one side and allow the person to fall because we are to preoccupied with self to see the needs of others? Or do we hold them closer because they are weaker and we are stronger? Do we know ourselves to be strong enough to carry them as long as they need us?

These are important questions that each of us needs to examine before we announce to the world that we will be with someone "In sickness and in health .... renouncing all others ... till death do us part ..." Long after the wedding dress is hung up, the band stops playing and the friends are few and far between husbands and wives have to live with choices. People change, lives change, love changes. If we are truly blessed love carries us through the worst times of our lives. A wife drives her husband to therapy, a husband holds his wife's hand while she has chemo. A man still sees the beauty of the woman who lies beside him with her bald head on the pillow. A wife feels her heart beat faster because she hears her husband's footsteps.

For most of us life has periods of anguish and troubles. We have to accept that we can not prevent those we love most from being harmed. We watch and we walk alongside wishing that we could carry their burden. We are mindful of the things that can harm those whom we love. We do what we can to be good people and loving partners. We snap, and we may even snarl because we are tired and anxious and troubled. Mistakes are made. Good judgment can be hard to find. But sitting in that cafe I saw a daughter smile at her mother with pure love and kindness. I watched a woman pour her husband a drink and help him drink through a straw. An old man was given a hug by his wife with a look of happiness on her face that shone. There were others less fortunate in that cafe that afternoon. People who had lost more than a disease can take but it was the possibility of lasting love and kindness that stayed with me after I left. For every hand that is offered and hug given we should remember to say thank you. For every moment that we have love in our lives we should be thankful.

Long after the pictures are taken we find ourselves being reminded that in sickness and in health the love we have for each other grows more precious with each day. It is the noblest gift that we have to give and the best that we receive. True love lasts because it allows the darkness in and casts a light on it to show that love can, at its very best, conquer that of which it is most afraid.