A Timeless Tapestry
By Vicki Marsh Kabat
I watched a tapestry in the making the other night. It wasn't hanging on the wall of a gallery or my den; it was in a hospital room.
The first threads were woven together nearly fifty-three years before when a young woman named Asa Lee applied for a job. The manager who took her application that day was a handsome young fellow nicknamed Mac. Asa Lee and Mac dated, fell in love and seven months later, married.
Together, they reared a son and a daughter and enjoyed the arrivals of five grandchildren over the years. Their lives had been full until a couple of years ago when Mac's health began to fail.
I met Asa Lee as several of us gathered to sing Christmas carols for hospitalized members of our church. I couldn't help but notice her ready smile and easy laugh.
I was surprised to learn our first stop was to visit Asa Lee's husband at the Veterans Administration Medical Center. Mac suffers from congestive heart failure and Parkinson's disease, which makes speech nearly impossible for him. He also has an eye condition that has robbed him of most of his sight.
By the time we entered Mac's room, our group had quieted, sobered by what we saw around us. Mac was awake, but he didn't seem to recognize his wife, who bent to kiss his cheek and take his hand.
We did our best singing carols, but our songs seemed small comfort to offer. As we sang, Asa Lee leaned over her husband's bed and looked lovingly into his unseeing eyes. Perhaps she saw reflected in them the joys of Christmases past, of their children playing on his lap, of tender moments they had shared.
Our singing ended, and Asa Lee bent nearer to her husband, smiling, to say a few words before she turned to leave. Mac was unable to respond.
We started for the door. I looked back and saw Mac trying to move. With great difficulty, he turned his head and reached toward his wife.
Mac and Asa Lee must have been woven together by some invisible but invincible thread. Just then she looked back at him. Seeing his outstretched hand, she instantly returned to his side and grasped it, bending near to give him another kiss.
The clasped hands and the shared kiss had taken only a moment, yet the love of which it spoke had knit together the joys and overcome the pains of a fifty-three- year tapestry of love and devotion. A tapestry as ancient as creation and as new as tomorrow's sunrise, when once again Asa Lee will return to her husband's side.
