When I went to visit my mother on her birthday, I found her sitting up in bed looking peacefully out the window. She smiled when I entered her room. There was something dramatically different about her, she seemed to be in a state of grace.
She looked so young. Her checks were full and pink and her green eyes were like twinkling jewels. There was not a line or wrinkle in her face. She practically glowed.
I kissed her on the cheek and wished her a happy birthday. She told me that she had been waiting for me. I could tell that she was happy to see me. My mother had been happy ever since she had told me her secret.
My mother had fallen in love a few months before her 90th birthday. It was a May-December romance and it was a secret.
The man who my mother had fallen in love with was almost 40 years younger. He worked as a maintenance man at the nursing home and was also a relative of the family who owned the facility. My mother said that their relationship would be frowned upon by the owners and the staff.
My mother told me that this was a “true love story.” “It was the kind of love that only came along once in a lifetime.” She told me that this love affair was so special that I should write about it.
I thought about what she said. I made a mental list of all the people who worked at “The Pines.” I thought that I knew most of them. I knew the maintenance man and he was in his 70s and no relation to the owners. It didn’t matter, I knew what would make my mother happy.
I pulled my chair up close to her bed and took out the pages that I had written. My mother had told me the beginning of her story, now I was able to give her an ending:
It was late, almost midnight when he opened the door to her room. She was waiting as planned. She was sitting on the edge of the bed wearing her prettiest dress. She took his hand and they headed out the door. They crept silently down the hallway and out the back door.
Holding her hand tightly in his, he led her into the warm spring night. They headed into the woods, moonlight lighting their way. When they came to the end of the woods they found themselves in a small meadow. My mother walked into the middle of the field and looked up at all the stars in the sky.
She reached up into the night sky and and the stars came down around her, spiraling into twinkling stairs. My mother turned around and looked into the eyes of her true love. Hand-in-hand, they climbed the stairs to a place where they could be together forever in love.
My mother passed away shortly after she turned 90. In real life my mother had not been lucky in love. It pleases my to think that she finally got her chance at true love. Sometimes you just have to re-write your story.
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