tragedy's trophy
I went to visit my grandmom in the hospital. Her lungs are so at their end and she coughed so loud and hard that I could almost feel it myself. She looked like a corpse, her bright blue eyes, surrounded by large bags of wrinkles, hardly shining anymore. Yesterday she tried to put on make-up. She hates to look like shit, she hates pity and whiny people. Always bickering with her boyfriend and hardly showing affection for him in public. I find it so scary to see a woman who's still young at heart, who has such a strong personality, with a body that is simply denying to cooperate.
Yet as my mother chats with her aunt -- in hushed voices, as not to disrupt the coldness and cleanness of the hospital --, I notice how my grandmom's boyfriend puts out his hand and my grandmom grabs it with hers, a fragile, purplish hand with its veins and muscles clearly visible through some loose skin. It's such a simple gesture, but where the horrific sight of her and her near-deathness moves me only a little, this brings tears to my eyes.
Thirty years ago they ran off together: she in her forties, he twenty years younger. No one thought it'd last, but this guy, even now, he's helping her no matter what. He may be just a guy, who looks unclean and has hardly ever done anything worth mentioning, but if you can love like that, so unconditionally and selflessly, no trophy in the world is good enough for you. That look on his face, of loss and love and hurt, it just breaks my heart.
Yet as my mother chats with her aunt -- in hushed voices, as not to disrupt the coldness and cleanness of the hospital --, I notice how my grandmom's boyfriend puts out his hand and my grandmom grabs it with hers, a fragile, purplish hand with its veins and muscles clearly visible through some loose skin. It's such a simple gesture, but where the horrific sight of her and her near-deathness moves me only a little, this brings tears to my eyes.
Thirty years ago they ran off together: she in her forties, he twenty years younger. No one thought it'd last, but this guy, even now, he's helping her no matter what. He may be just a guy, who looks unclean and has hardly ever done anything worth mentioning, but if you can love like that, so unconditionally and selflessly, no trophy in the world is good enough for you. That look on his face, of loss and love and hurt, it just breaks my heart.