ONE SHADE OF GRAY

      Last night, my wife Trixie was sitting on the sofa in the living room.  

     “What is that, one of those new iPads?” I asked her.  

     “No, it’s a Kindle.” she said.  This new technology happens way too fast for me these days.

     “What does it do? Start a fire or something?” I asked.  

     “I am starting to wonder that myself. It is a reader. You read books on it.” She said.  

     “Oh. So you are reading a book? Right now?”

     “Yep.”

     “What book?”

     “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

     “Never heard of it,” I said and went to bed.

     I can tell you now, that book is the greatest book I have never read.

     There was a time, if you were a fly on the wall in our bedroom, it would have looked like someone had thrown two bobcats in a burlap sack on our bed.  We were young then.

     These days, now that we are old, our bed looks more like a sea lion colony.  It sounds like one most nights too.  All happily married couples go through ups and downs.  Getting old is one of the downs.  It doesn’t really seem to matter, though.

     I asked Trixie about that last week.  “How in God’s name can you still love me?  Look how fat I am.  My hair is turning gray.  I am getting so old.”  

     “I think you still look pretty good, honey.  Have you looked at me lately?” she asked.  She was right.  She has gotten fat and gray and old too.  She saw me looking her over.  She knew what I was thinking.  When you have been married for a long time you learn to say things without saying a single word sometimes.  You just understand each other like that.

     “I still think you look pretty good, though,” I told her.  

     “That’s because what we have is old love.  That term 'Love is blind' is for old people like us,” she said.

     “Could be I guess.  Could be that we are going blind too though.  I wish there was something we could do about it.”

     "Well, there are only two things we can do it about it, I suppose.  Lose weight or turn the lights off.”

     “I’ll get the lights.  One more question…” I said.

     “Not tonight,” she said.

     As I laid down in our bed, I thought about that conversation from a few weeks ago.  She was right.  Old love is exactly what we have.  Young love is beautiful.  Old love is not.  Old love has a power that young love can never know, though.  That power grew from young love getting old.  It gained its strength from raising kids.  Her love for me got stronger when she had to carry some of my burdens when they became too much for me.  My love for her grew stronger as I helped her when she could not help herself.

     Day after day, year after year.  It took a lot of effort.  That effort took its toll.  Our bodies show the effects and so do our hearts.  Our hearts grew powerful.  Our bodies, not so much.  We had young love once.  It was beautiful.  But that has changed.  Now we have old love.  Old love is all we need.

     Last night, I was almost asleep when she came to bed.  She got in and said, “Are you asleep yet?”

     “Nope.” I said.

     “Good.”

     Did I mention that Fifty Shades of Grey is the greatest book I never read?

     When you get older, you don’t need Fifty Shades of Grey.  All you need is one.  One shade of gray at a time.  We may be old, but we ain’t dead yet.  Besides, we still have forty nine more shades to go.

     That is all.