When I was in my early teens a song, “Pass It On”, was popular. The first line is “in only takes a spark to get a fire going”…

I am honored to serve two older adult clients and their daughter in my “encore” career. Once a week I have the privilege of visiting a husband and wife in their current home, a small memory care unit of an assisted living facility. Because nothing is more important than ethics and respect for others I can write very little about this precious couple. What I can record, however, is a testimony to the power of love. I can share a story about two older adults, lives well-lived, adult children that worry, care and love, and a residence that is not their “forever home”.  A husband and wife, physically weakened by their years on this Earth, slipping away quietly from the present, are still connected by an enduring love. He is a peacemaker; she is a rebel. He is comforted by his memories; she is energized by disruption of an all too boring routine.

My life is made richer these days by the life histories of others. I love to ask questions about a time before I was born. Where were you born; what life work did you do? How, and where, did you meet? Their stories are gifts, and my life is richer for having listened to memories re-told. But most importantly, today, I saw a spark that became a flame. Two old folks, married for a million years, captured a moment when they met and fell in love. A memory revealed itself and I was, gratefully, the witness. A husband and a wife, a shared secret smile, locked their gaze into one another’s eyes, and I was there to see love, emotion manifested into a living, breathing moment when there was no one in this world except a man and a woman in love.