My verdict has many legs. I found many things to analyze and learned many many more. But I was shocked mostly by a single picture. Inevitably I had to extend my research to a place where a great number of people would attend. What's better than a mall? So I spend a whole day at the mall watching,observing,taking notes and thinking about the reactions of everything I could find. In a corner of the mall, there was a cafeteria. A place where everybody would rest and have a snack. I entered the place in search of a refreshment but in the end found something greater.
While walking into the vicinity of the cafeteria I noticed a senile couple. They were sitting in the front row, almost deserted by the rest of the cafeteria. They were alone there. All the back rows were taken, but they were all alone in the front like some kind of lepers. Thankfully the fact that there was no one around them helped me notice them.. I bought myself a light meal and a soft drink and walked in search of a table to sit. Normally my instinct would lead me also to the back where the crowd was. It would seem more appropriate cause the back was crumbed with youngsters and couples. It would be easier for me to blend with people closer to my age. But this time two contradicting feelings settled in my mind. The one was the feeling of the researcher. For a strange reason this elderly couple intrigued me. The other was an even stranger urge to break my unavoidable full of prejudice habits. With these in mind I decided to sit close to the couple. I picked a table where I was back to back with the old lady of the couple, and I was so close that I could "eavesdrop" on their conversation. From afar it would surely seem like a very peculiar scene. In a place full of couples and "teams" of young people, a man alone on a table close to a couple whose years added together would surely make 4 times his age. And the funnier, they were both surrounded by empty chairs.
The old man was in a wheelchair. Obviously he was disabled. He seemed to have somewhere about 80% paralysis because his wife was doing all the works for him. She was tenderly feeding him at the time, something which probably couldn't do by himself. And she did it with extreme care. Like she was dealing with a baby. The first thing that came in my mind was simple. They had probably been married for more than 4 decades, judging by their age. But the woman still took care of her man, even though she has also probably been doing it for also 4 decades. Without complaining or asking for return. She was there for her man. I kept wondering. How would that feel? It must take such a great strength of character doing that. So what were their motives? None. There must be no motives in my opinion. It must be love. Pure undivided love. Not the kind that teenagers feel. The real kind of love. The one in which you would die to see your partner happy. So was it love?? I had to put it on a scale and find what weighed more. So taking into consideration every married couple's sayings, passion after certain years (in the best cases) seizes to exist. Then it turns to affection. And affection turns into love. The deep meaningful love of a family member. But somewhere between, there is also hidden the sense of being accustomed to someone. Routine of seeing someone every day. Something like a moral duty to take care of him/her and been taken care of. I wonder if all the married couples had the choice of living their partner without no guilt to be found, how many would actually do it?. Anyway. I tried to listen to the couples conversation. I had the impression that this couple was in a way some kind of a super couple. In my mind I had idolized them. I had carved a statue of them and worshipped them for their tender image. I wanted to believe they were some kind of retired university teachers, who had been intellectual, who had lived love in it's utter expression in their youth, and now they were living their "last years" under the same blessed way. But this wasn't the case. They were not intellectuals (not more than me and you at least). They were a simple traditional Greek old couple. They seemed to be not something out of the ordinary. And that was far more encouraging. If an ordinary couple could withstand time and conditions so difficult, and in the end taking care of each other so tenderly then the really "extraordinary" couples would be able to perform miracles.
The two of them contradicted the very idea that took thousands of years to be build in our consciousness. The "strong" man takes care and "protects" the "weak" woman. And the "tender" romantic woman "loves" and serves loyally the man. Isn't that what the fathers' teach to the boys and mothers' to their daughters? Isn't' that the feminist parties try to kill? Isn't that what's been going on (even without words sometimes) for centuries? Well, that old couple proved millions of beliefs wrong. The woman was taking care of the man. The woman was protecting the man (in any way, even by moving his wheelchair). The woman was both a man and a woman. Of course it could had been the other way round. But this would change nothing. The same rules would apply. Only the roles would change.I wondered how the man on the wheelchair would feel. I could never come to his place though. How can you understand such a situation if you don't live it yourself. It would be unfair even to him and every person who was unlucky to be in such a situation, to try and come to their place. Ruling out completely the idea of getting in his shoes, I tried a different approach. Was there any way for him to be happy? Was there anything at all that he would desire? The strange thing was that he had a strange smile on his face. The smile of a man who was reassured. The smile of a man who had all the things he needed. And I guess that all the things he wanted were sitting next to him taking care of him.
Strangely but without wondering another idea stormed in my mind. What were two senile people doing in a mall? I tried not to rationalize it further. After all it would be a stereotypic idea to judge them because of their age. They might had been there for shopping. Or maybe they were there for a walk. Yet their image among the young "healthy" and "happy" (?) people was rather a stand for them. I felt tenderness and affection for this couple. But also a great sense of proudness. I admired them. They would not compromise in front of a TV. They stood outside in the world (let's face it, the cities are unfriendly for older members of our society). But they lived in their ideal world. An ideal world which might had been difficult to live in, but it was timid and true.
1 comment:
it's beautiful!!!
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