But sleep would not come for Joyce. After a short while, she asks Gabriel her head still turned to the other side, “How long have they been waiting outside?”

“At least a couple of hours.”

“This has been hard for them too, I’m sure.” She sighs, still looking away while Gabriel caresses her hair.

“Yes, very hard—especially today. They, too, are confused and afraid—afraid to lose your love and affection.”

“They will never lose that. Of course, I love them!” she declares passionately, turning her face quickly toward him.

“You are crying! Don’t cry, dear Joyce! Your tears are much too precious to waste on that pillow. Together we will overcome this. We have each other and the children.”

“Well, we are still a happily married couple! I believe the reason for our happiness is that we always try to remember each other’s qualities and strong points, instead of wasting precious time on attempting to fix each other’s imperfections. Of course, you may remember that we did forget this rule sometimes, especially when the children were young, but we always got back on track.”

“What about the children?”

“They are good, good children and as we taught them since they were little to be open to God’s call for their life and be open to His will, two of them are considering the religious vocation while the other two are happily married with children of their own. The little one is still in between crossroads.

“It has been a blessing to be grandparents, we get to enjoy again the innocence of little children and the joy of having them around without having to do all the work involved. Our hard work in raising our family did pay off immensely. There is a lot to share and say but …”

“I should not let them wait much longer. Come, dear Gabriel, help me sit up and fix up my hair. I want them to see me at my best.”

Gabriel gets her a mirror, she hesitates to look in it but she reflects if aging happened to Gabriel it better have happened to me too. She looks and she sees this middle age woman looking back at her with frightened eyes … the eyes, there is something about the eyes… even though they look familiar they also look so different, tired, black circles and some wrinkles have sneaked quietly all around the eyes and made them look older and tired. Her face pale, her cheeks thinner, but her mouth still has its youthful smile. She raises the mirror up to her hair, she smiles seeing more then few gray hair circling her forehead, she wonders why they call it gray hair where they are so obviously white and when did this gray hair sneak into her dark hair? Probably they waited till she was so busy raising her family and they began one hair after another changing color from dark brown to white or gray.

Oh well, Gabriel mentioned that she is a grandmother now … all the better, she cannot imagine a grandmother without gray hair. Having lived a full life from marriage to having children to being grandparent, aging loses its power over you, you are not upset or obsessed with it anymore because you have more important and real things to look for.

She fixes up her hair, give him back the mirror.

“How do I look?” she asks sadly, knowing full well the gray in her hair and soft wrinkles around her eyes.

“You look lovely, my sweet girl, like a dream coming true.”

“Thank you, dear.” She smiles, feeling as if his amazing love paled in comparison to any beauty the years had stolen away.

“I love you, Joyce. Thank you for marrying me—and thank you for coming back to me.”

“You can never get rid of me,” she teases. Then she smiles lovingly at him.

He bends down and gives her a good, long kiss.

“Gabriel…the children,” she says, remembering they have been waiting so long.

“Alright, alright! I’ll call them.” He rushes toward the door, opens it and before leaving, looks back at her smiling and nearly shouts: “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

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