I sat down with my bowl of noodles next to a Filipino lady and an old lady in a wheelchair. The wheelchair had extra extensions added to its basic structure to support the fragile patient. I would surmise that this poor lady has had a stroke. She needed the extra support to hold her body upright and support her neck and head. She was making unintelligible guttural sounds trying to express herself. To look at her, you have to feel a bit sorry for her as her quality of life must be quite unpleasant. Her caregiver was talking to her and asking her questions in which she would answer with loud 'errhhh' and 'arnngg' sounds. She was all of herself but trapped in an unresponsive body. While I am a normally very curious person, I didn't want to discomfort the old lady with any rudeness by looking at her. She would have had enough of it on a daily basis and I remembered how much my Gran used to hate being stared at while she was in a wheelchair.
I bent down to my food determined to give her some privacy. I could still follow the conversation that was going on next to me. At one point, the caregiver said, "I know you don't want to eat this, but this is your husband's food not yours. He'll be here soon after he gets you your coffee." My mind noted that there was a husband. I thereby was shocked when at the corner of my eye, a older Caucasian man sat down next to the old lady in the wheelchair (I'll call her Auntie). He cheerfully greeted Auntie with a "Hi darling, you okay with your food?" Wow, my mind reeled at the new situation. Auntie was married to a Caucasian!
To give this situation some context, our older generation barely had any cross-marriages. You married within your race. If you were a rebel, you married out of your race with another Asian race. To have married a Caucasian would have been frowned upon by our family and society. This Auntie did it, she must have been quite brave to have bucked the society's pressures. In Singapore's colonial past, we were left with this weird mentality that Caucasians are better than Asians. It's a mentality that no longer grips us but occasionally it rears its ugly head. In Singapore, most Asian ladies with Caucasian partners are gorgeous. They are svelte and sexy with great fashion dress sense and are always dressed up to the nines. That's the stereotype.
Back to my next table at the hawker centre. Auntie's husband (Uncle) was not handsome, but he was pretty charming. He looked healthy and from the way he spoke, he had been living in Singapore for quite some time. He was very familiar with the food and the Singlish we spoke. He spoke very lovingly to Auntie at all times, he fed her mouthfuls of her food and drink. One of the drink stall's owner came by to sit and chat with them. What I really appreciated was that Uncle included Auntie in the conversation too. Asking her if she was familiar with a particular road in Singapore, if she was comfortable and if she needed anything else. Auntie obviously couldn't express herself much, but she understood everything.
There she was with her grey and white hair standing up, drooling in her pajamas, strapped to a chair, needing to be fed and looked after just as if she was a baby... She had a partner who loved her through his actions. She had a partner that despite all the difficulties, still spoke to her lovingly and included her in his life. He didn't leave all the caring to the caregiver, but was active in feeding her, cleaning her and talking to her. I was totally humbled. There was beauty in this little snippet I was given an opportunity to witness. This was real love. Patience and devotion in bad times. He understood that while Auntie was dealt a bad card, he would do his best to make ride it out with her.
I want that type of love for myself and for my loved ones. I am mature enough to understand that it takes both partners to make that happen. I know that it won't happen overnight and you need to constantly work at keeping the love alive as the both of you grow together. And just sometimes, you grow while your partner stagnants. As in Auntie's case, she has stagnated not by choice but by misfortune. So do we just give up and pursue our own happiness?
Too often, we subscribe to a fairytale love. Soaring and out-of-control emotions of passion, overwhelming urges and desires in romantic rituals. When reality sets in, disillusion is frequently experienced and most often we seek the exit. How many divorces happen because we do not remember our vows? Life's not going to always be great. There are going to be ups and there are downs. But the whole point is this... If you love someone, you have to show it. You have to work at love and loving yourself and your loved ones. If you don't do it, how will you experience the true concept of love?
Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings. Anais Nin
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