Attached in Dementiaville

There are four questions of value in life...
What is sacred?
Of what is the spirit made?
What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for?
The answer to each is the same.
Only love.
-- Johnny Depp
as Don Juan deMarco (1995)

When Romeo and I first met, we could hardly stand to be away from each other. And by "away," I mean that we didn't even like to part for the few seconds it took to go to opposite sides of the car to get in. Really. I couldn't believe it myself at the time.

But these were true feelings, the feeling to be attached at all times, that came from deep within each of us. Why we felt like this was a mystery to us both. Still, we followed our instincts and held hands wherever we went. Grocery shopping, running errands, sightseeing, taking walks. We were attached in a way neither of us had ever been attached before. This was bonding in an extremely healthy way.

Romeo and I were living love, we WERE love, and we seemed to magnify those loving feelings wherever we were without trying. Strangers on the street would see us, and they would nod and smile hugely, walking away with a spring in their step that wasn't there a few seconds ago. People would stop us and comment about how much in love we seemed to be. People would ask how long we had been married. I told the truth at the time "Six months." Secretly, I was thinking that it was more like 600 years, in the good sense.

Now, five years later, much has changed. We don't go grocery shopping together, we don't run errands together, we don't go sightseeing together. The only walks we take together are when I get Romeo up for short jaunts around the nursing home or outside of it on the deck. People still stop us and comment about how much in love we seem to be. People still ask how long we've been married. Now I reply, "Almost five years." And I still secretly think that it's more like 600 years, in the good sense.