This song first struck a chord for me as I listened to it today because it is so sweet and powerful and because we have already established that I am a hopeless romantic. Some lyrics from the song,
“All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am, so may stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am…. But these stories don’t mean anything if you’ve got no one to tell them to it’s true………. You see this smile that’s on my mouth it’s hiding the words that don’t come out and all of our friends who think that am blessed……they don’t know who I really am. They don’t know what I’ve been through like you do.”
I have a great uncle whose wife passed last year. She had first got a stroke in 1995 which left her limping on a crutch with a paralysed left arm. Fifteen years later she had another major stroke and couldn’t speak. She developed complete dysphasia (inability to speak), lost most of her function in in the limbs and was bed bound for six years despite efforts to rehabilitate her until she passed last year.
My retired great uncle during these past years came home after his day’s escapades; work with his cows in the farm, gardening with some help (he’s about 75 years of age and not so strong, at least not as strong as he thinks) , after his social drink or two or three I don’t know; he came to his wife’s room and talked to her about things that only they know. Whatever they talked about left him fulfilled enough to return home everyday to tell her more, probably about cows, annoying people, people she knew and those she didn’t, the motorbike guy, I don’t know what else. Because she had complete aphasia, she did not respond. Somehow, he did this for almost two hours on almost every evening as she ate and he also ate his dinner in her room. He spoke and he listened. Maybe by her node, her smile, frown, a light or dullness in her eyes or nothing at all but a spiritual communication he felt content enough to go on talking. I am convinced that he felt a back and forth in this interaction because there were moments of simply pausing to listen (or watch). Everyone else did try to “speak” with her but it just wasn’t that long, persistent, consistent, candid or deep. Even his shallow rants seemed meaningful to them both. She was living in that bed, in that room through his stories and he was happy that she seemed to witness his life through those words.
There is something special about old couples in love who have been together for so long. I would opine that the special thing is their story and the stories they share. It’s the reason people like to hear them speak or read their old dusty journals and biographies or watch it in romantic movies. The greater stories I think are those that they have shared with each other. They could never tell everything that they have been through but they have both been witnesses to each other’s journey.
For no apparent reason I have played this song a number of times today and thought of my great uncle. A song like this one gets me all chocked up and in a way warm and fuzzy inside. The stories he is telling her now in heaven must be endless or maybe they don’t need to speak now because it only served them here on earth.
I don’t know about you but I wish to have someone in my life to whom this song applies. I wish to have someone whom I can tell my thoughts and listen to theirs kindly and compassionately. Who else loves heart to heart conversations ? Deep, personal and raw. How profound would it be for us all to have the person(s) to share our lives like this? And how I wish people had the time and fortitude to be that person to someone!
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