Part time employee, full time love.

M had written a bulletin concerning the nature of true love and I chimed in with a comment that I'm proud to say they appreciated.

I got to thinking about it a bit more, and certainly the long road of time with all of its glories and defeats reveals true love again and again.

I've seen relationships come and go amongst the people in my life through all stages. Divorces, break-ups, couples that just couldn't make it work for one reason or another.

But I've also been blessed with good examples of long last true love, and sometimes, even people I don't know particularly well display it in moments that for whatever reason stick with me. This is just one story in mind.

When I was a woodworker, I once had a part-time employee working for me. He was a recent retiree and the father-in-law to my brother.

Sweet man. Soft spoken. Biker. Still had his long hair, now grey, in a careful, tight ponytail. Drove a cement truck all of his life. Also, as it turned out, was a gifted craftsman. He and my brother get on well, and the number of times I've been around he, his family, and all, they're all what we call in my neck of the woods "good people".

He and I worked pretty closely for a couple of years, but I recall one day in particular.

He often started before me, letting himself into the shop and beginning work of his own accord, and I'd drift in an hour or three later and since it was only us two, we'd get to talking often in between the sound of the bandsaw or the radial arm saw, or the constant din of the dust collector.

Anyway, he told me that this particular day was 40th wedding anniversary. We chatted about this or that throughout the day, but as the afternoon wore on, I could see him growing a bit pensive with excitement.

He simply couldn't wait to get home to his wife for their special day.

As I was telling him to knock off early and go home, I regarded him carefully. Looked him purposefully in the eye.

I asked him quite directly, "Do you love her just as much now as you did forty years ago on your wedding day?"

His eyes literally brightened. They shone. He's always had kind eyes, but just then they SHINED. 

Without pause, but neither answering in an overly hurried instant like you're trying to convince both yourself and the listener. 

His answer was to gently intone but one word. He delivered it with warmth. He delivered it with sincerity. But most of all, he delivered it as a plain matter of fact. The gentle confidence someone has that their words are universally true and indisputable, rather than hastened words that need the weight of argument behind them.

A quiet voice.

He simply answered "More."

His eyes. His voice. I knew it to be true. KNEW it as part of the collective universal soul dedicated to love. Forty years and he loved his wife more than the day there were married by infinite indescribable amounts.

As the wreckage of age is slowly creeping into my wife and I, it is only now that I can begin to grasp the depths of meaning that he intoned in that single word, and I count myself among the lucky for the experience!

In 1808, Thomas Moore penned these lyrics to an old Irish air that begin to scratch the surface of this.

Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms

 I.
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
    Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
    Like fairy-gifts fading away,—
Thou wouldst still be ador'd as this moment thou art,
    Let thy loveliness fade as it will;
And, around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
    Would entwine itself verdantly still!

 II.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
    And thy cheeks unprofan'd by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,
    To which time will but make thee more dear!
Oh! the heart, that has truly lov'd, never forgets,
    But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
    The same look which she turn'd when he rose!