Feeling Young

Helen and I went to school together sixty years ago. Our paths separated only to join again fifty five years later when we were in our seventies. Our children protested but we calmed them down by handing over all our assets to them except a little we needed to supplement our meager pensions. We did not marry for money nor for the looks because at our age one has learnt that appearances never fail to deceive. I can assure you dear reader, that we did not marry for sex either because none of us had forgotten the miserable experience on the back seat of my Dad’s car and had no desire to recompense for it at our age.

So what was it that prompted two introverted bookish individuals with six children, twenty five grandchildren and eight great grandchildren between them, to tie the knot when well past the prescribed three scores and ten? I can’t speak for Helen except to say that it was not my culinary skills that persuaded her; I have never dared to eat what little I have ever cooked. I can only tell you what there was in it for me. It was the rush of Dopamine to the right centres of my feeble brain when I saw her, even thought of her. But what caused this rush. It is the story that I want to tell you. Please bear with me, it is not long. Younger readers please don’t laugh. Older readers will understand; some of them may even envy me.

After the fate snatched away from me the beloved wife of fifty years, I liquidated my home in the suburbs and moved to a small apartment downtown. I could walk to a hole in the wall that called itself Jim’s Pizza House but served excellent Moussaka cooked by his charming wife in the kitchen you could see through the window. Along with a side dish of Greek salad and Baklava with Espresso to round it up, I had enough to eat for the day. I usually dosed through the dinner hour in front of the TV with an open book in my lap and when I woke up I never could remember whether I had had the dinner or not. If I felt peckish I ate a few chocolate chip cookies with some chamomile tea. Otherwise I brushed my teeth with the fancy electric toothbrush my dentist grand daughter had given me a few birthdays ago and rolled into a cold bed. When I woke up, I read the National Post (or was it Mail?) with occasional sips from a cup of Darjeeling tea and then had resin bran for breakfast, in the same bowl I had used the previous day because I had forgotten to wash it. I hardly did anything all day because I could not remember what it was that I should have done.

Then I met Helen in the Pizza House. When I entered the restaurant on a beautiful day, one of the three faces on the table on my right seemed familiar somehow although, no surprise there, I couldn’t quite place it. I went to my usual table and sat down. After a few minutes Jim walked over. I was expecting him to say, “The usual sir” but I heard instead, “The lady over there has asked me to offer to you an appetizer of your choice. What will be your pleasure sir?”

I did not usually order gin and tonic, although, if I remember it right, I never had a meal without it in my young days. So I ordered it and trudged over to the lady in a blue dress, a gold necklace and diamond earrings sitting with her back to the wall, sunlight streaming from the window on her happy face.
“Thank you very much for the drink. I know I should remember you, the face is familiar but the memory has gone the way of so many other things in my old age. Please save me from sleepless nights for the rest of my life.”
“Hello David. I am Helen. We went to Jim Lloyd High together.”
A billion watt bulb flashed.
“Of course! How stupid of me. Now I remember it as if it was yesterday. How have you been?
“I have been fine except that I lost my husband of forty five years. I moved here a couple of months ago to be near two of my children.”
She introduced me to her son and the daughter who were with her. We arranged to meet for lunch the following week to share what life had thrown at us.

I made notes with red ink on white stickies and placed them at key points in the apartment to make sure I remembered the appointment. When the day arrived at long last I polished my shoes, dressed carefully in a white shirt, blue suit and the matching red tie and combed my remaining hair carefully covering the bald patches as well as it could be done. The jacket hanged loose, pants dragged along the ground and the collar of the shirt was a little big but it was better than any thing else in my antiquated wardrobe. I walked over to the Pizza House half an hour before the appointed time. While waiting my thoughts went back to the teen years. Helen was the bright kid in the class; I was the macho sports kid. To no one’s surprise we got together. I was lost in the reverie when I heard the voice that hadn’t changed much, “Sorry, I am late. I missed the stop and had to walk back.”
“I hadn’t noticed the time. Glad to see you and note that you still look the same.”
“Stop flattering me. It won’t get you anywhere now.”

The lunch lasted almost till the dinner time. I was amazed at how much she remembered of our years together. We arranged to meet again, and again. It didn’t take long for us to fall in love, properly this time.

What made me fall for her? I can assure you it was more than the loneliness of a widower. I was blown away by how sharp the brain of Helen still was in spite of us being of the same age. She remembered where we had met, what we had eaten at all our previous meetings and how it tasted, every word I had spoken while I couldn’t recall any detail about the previous rendezvous, even what she had just asked. She pointed out that the glasses were in my pocket when I was going berserk looking for them but she always knew where the pen in her handbag was; leave alone the whereabouts of the bag. She knew the exact time for the bus when I had forgotten where the stop was.

I felt in my bones that Helen would resolve all my problems if she became part of my life. There was nothing I could contribute towards her welfare but I asked for her hand anyway. I am bewildered whenever I think of it that she accepted. Of course all the hell broke loose when we told our plans to our respective children. However, the things worked out after some give and take, give from us and take from our families. We had a small wedding celebration with our local families followed by a short honeymoon – stroll on the Sandy Beach in Calgary – and settled down in an apartment not far from Helen’s son to make it easy for him to drop the kids when other care was not available. My hopes were realized as well. Thanks to all kinds of neurotransmitters now circulating in my brain my memory circuits revived and Helen’s patience is not tested as often as it used to be when we were courting. I am feeling young in so many other ways too that who knows; we may even be able to consummate our marriage one day.