Today's Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul

[Guest guest]

A Gentle Caress

and I hardly noticed when the waitress came and

placed the plates on our table. We were seated in a small deli

tucked away from the bustle of Third Street, in New York City.

Even the smell of our recently arrived blintzes was no challenge

to our excited chatter. In fact, the blintzes remained slumped

in their sour cream for quite some time. We were enjoying

ourselves too much to eat.

Our exchange was lively, if not profound. We laughed about

the movie that we had seen the night before and disagreed about

the meaning behind the text we had just finished for our

literature seminar. He told me about the moment when he had

taken the drastic step into maturity by becoming and

refusing to respond to " Mikey. " Had he been twelve or fourteen?

He couldn't remember, but he did recall that his mother had

cried and said he was growing up too quickly. As we bit into

our blueberry blintzes, I told him about the blueberries that my

sister and I used to pick when we went to visit our cousins in

the country. I recalled that I always finished mine before we

got back to the house, and my aunt would warn me that I was

going to get a very bad stomachache. Of course, I never did.

As our sweet conversation continued, my eyes glanced across

the restaurant, stopping at the small corner booth where an

elderly couple sat. Her floral-print dress seemed as faded as

the cushion on which she had rested her worn handbag. The top

of his head was as shiny as the soft-boiled egg on which he very

slowly nibbled. She also ate her oatmeal at a slow, almost

tedious pace.

But what drew my thoughts to them was their undisturbed

silence. It seemed to me that a melancholy emptiness permeated

their little corner. As the exchange between and me

fluctuated from laughs to whispers, confessions to assessments,

this couple's poignant stillness called to me. 'How sad,' I

thought, 'not to have anything left to say. Wasn't there any

page that they hadn't yet turned in each other's stories? What

if that happened to us?'

and I paid our small tab and got up to leave the

restaurant. As we walked by the corner where the old couple

sat, I accidentally dropped my wallet. Bending over to pick it

up, I noticed that under the table, each of their free hands was

gently cradled in the other's. They had been holding hands all

this time!

I stood up and felt humbled by the simple yet profound act

of connection I had just been privileged to witness. This man's

gentle caress of his wife's tired fingers filled not only what I

had previously perceived as an emotionally empty corner, but

also my heart. Theirs was not the uncomfortable silence whose

threat one always feels just behind the punch line or at the end

of an anecdote on a first date. No, theirs was a comfortable,

relaxed ease, a gentle love that knew it did not always need

words to express itself. They had probably shared this hour of

the morning with each other for a long time, and maybe today

wasn't that different from yesterday, but they were at peace

with that, and with each other.

Maybe, I thought as and I walked out, it wouldn't

be so bad if someday that was us. Maybe, it would be kind of

nice.

By Daphna Renan

Reprinted by permission of Daphna Renan © 1998, from Chicken

Soup for the Couple's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen,

Mark & Chrissy Donnelly and Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D.