Photography: David Soong / Axioo
The evening was warm and humid. There was a blackout and since there was no electricity, no lights and no air conditioning the old couple sat in the front balcony of their home for 30 years seeking the cool breeze. They were comfortably holding each other's hands. Their hands are bony now, rough from laboring in all these years and aging spots have covered their wrinkled skin. Their dull gold wedding rings still rested on their their fingers after sixty years of marriage. They were reminiscing of the times they were together.
The husband recently celebrated his 91st birthday and his wife soon will have her 86th birthday. They first met when he was a young air force officer lucky enough not to have seen action when the war ended. She was a nurse in the hospital where he was visiting an injured colleague. He saw her in her crisp white uniform and was instantly attracted. Her eyes were fixed on the patients in her care, but when she looked up, her eyes met his from across the room. It wasn't love at first sight, but after a short period of dating, love found them, and their were married shortly afterward, in a simple church ceremony witnessed by a few close family and friends.
The newlyweds did not have an easy start to a life together. They had to spend years apart because he took on a job flying across continents on piston engine planes that took 2 days to fly across the kangaroo route from London to Sydney across 3 continents and the East Indies. She continued to serve as a nurse in the same hospital. To live separated by continents was not easy. But she had a close knit of church friends to keep her company. Husband and Wife met sparingly when he flew back to the airline's base in Heathrow.
Without the support of her faithful husband and friends she would have called quits to the marriage. Married life was never always smooth. On top of their arrangements, they were two different individuals who had to learn to adapt and accept each other likes and dislikes. They had to constantly remind themselves of their vows they made to each other, to love and to respect in good time and in bad times. To remind themselves of it when times were good, like when they welcomed their first child or when they were on holiday as a family, it was easy. But their love and commitment has been tested when things were not so well.
He gave up his career in the airline but never gave up flying. As a successful entrepreneur he had different businesses across countries in the region. His success with money grew. He invested in personal properties across the region. His frequent flying for his business and in business class attracted the attention of attractive female cabin crews. His many trips away from home made it easy for him to have dalliances without the knowledge of his wife. Cracks begin to appear in their marriage when he took some special care and attention to one of the cabin crew. Jealousy, denial, arguments became more common and money, jewellery, cars, apartments and other material possessions cannot paper over the cracks in their relationship.
Some time later, his health began to deteriorate as his kidney began to fail. His face had a purple tinge as ammonia began to poison his body. He couldn't walk. He had to drag his body to propel motion. He grew conscious of his mortality. His wealth bought him the best medical care, but not a kidney donor when he needed it. He needed a match that his body wouldn't reject. The search for a donor began, and his wife volunteered herself to be tasted, and as luck would have it, she was a match. But was she ready to lose a vital organ for the welfare of a husband who had not been faithful to her?
The panel of doctors and psychologists who interviewed her asked a multitude of questions.
"Were you coerced to donor?"
"Do you understand the risk of failed surgery on yourself and your child?"
She didn't understand what compelled her to do it, but she prayed about it and sought her answers from deep inside her heart. She was reminded of the vow she made on her wedding day, to be faithful to her husband in sickness and in health. Her vow had no disclaimer… that she would be faithful if he was faithful. No. She needed to be faithful despite his transgression.
The husband and the wife both survived the kidney transplant. He survived to be a humbler person and grateful for his wife's generosity in spirit and in body. She became enriched by learning to forgive. She didn't forget that he's hurt her, but when she thought about it, she no longer felt pain. She had learnt to push forward with her life.
The husband and wife now live alone in their home as their only child is now a mother and lives independently. Growing old together was a blessing. Although, arthritis has weakened her joints and she is left in a wheelchair, she still has joy erupting from her heart, every day. For many years since the kidney transplant, she felt comforted by the gift of life she has bestowed to her husband, and her husband, the love of his wife every day for the rest of his life.
To the wife, marriage is a life full of sacrifice, of learning to forgive, and of forging ahead with hope. To the husband, it is life of repentance and humility. And for both, a journey to be grateful for each other.
