During one of my attempts to convince a boyfriend of the inherent significance of entering someone's body and sharing the highest form of life-creating intimacy with them, he said to me:
"I doubt you are going to be in a nursing home, 90 years old, talking about all the great sex you had."
Obviously, he was implying that people do not look back on sex as a significant life experience worth talking about in their "twilight" years on earth.
Well, I may not know much about sex, but I know the elderly.
I am a nurse. I work in geriatrics (with the elderly), and I have worked in several nursing homes. Over the last four years, I have spent more quality time with my old folks than with…well just about anyone else in my life. People remain sexual beings throughout their lives - regardless of their physical capabilities- and yes, sex remains an "important" facet of life (however you want to define "important"). I am not talking about the stereotypical "dirty, old man"; although I've encountered a few of those. I have even met women well into their 80's, 90's, and beyond who had a surprisingly "dirty" sense of humor or who enjoyed telling anecdotes of earlier escapades with a little wink. However, I'm not talking about that kind of elder-sexuality.
I'm talking about the real lovers.
You can recognize them as soon as you walk into their rooms. Their sexuality is simply all over the place. They are the ones with pictures covering their walls; with pictures in frames on the bureaus and nightstand; with photo albums constantly laid out on the beds or in their laps. Grainy,worn, black-and-white photos of weddings and honeymoons and anniversaries and holidays- an informal timeline of love. But most of all (of course) pictures of their children. Pictures of their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren… Oh, by the way (in case you forgot) you can't have children without sex (even if adopted, somebody had to have sex to make them). So, yeah, sex is pretty significant to the lives and legacies of most people, even in their elder years-even if they aren't talking about "all the great sex" they had.
I could fill a book with the memories that my elderly have shared with me about their love lives.
This past summer, I was sitting outside with a woman in her early 90's who I didn't know too well, but I knew she had been married and had many children. I turned to her and said what I usually say. "I am a sucker for romance, would you tell me how you met your husband?"
She didn't disappoint me.
She was a secretary and she met him at a work party. She was 18; he was a little older, and he wouldn't leave her alone. She didn't date. She had been asked by quite a few men but she never went out with any of them. She was holding out for something, she wasn't sure. But this young man was very persistent and finally she agreed.
"We went out on that first date and we were sitting together when he said 'I'm going to marry you' and I told him he was crazy! But I saw him every single day after that until we were married only about six months later. I knew he was the one, so we just got married…and we didn't shack up! Like you girls do now. I hear you girls talk, you know. Shacking up with this one, having that one's baby… back then, living together or having someone's baby- those things meant something. I never would have done anything like that; I never wanted to, but even if I had wanted to- I wouldn't have! That would have broken my father's heart."
"I never wanted to do anything like that either." I said quietly and then asked, "How many children did you have?"
"Eight!"
"Wow!"
"I know it…people always made me feel like I should be ashamed of that. The doctor would say, 'Jeez, all your husband needs to do is hang his pants on the bed post and you get pregnant!', but its not that we didn't know how to avoid it... I just loved my husband! I loved having his children!"
"I think its wonderful…"
"He was a wonderful man…(she shakes her head) he died too young! Taken from me too soon!"
"How old was he?"
"Eighty-six."
You can have no idea, how comforting it is to have a conversation with someone who sees forever love, sex, and children as intrinsically intertwined…as they should be.
Now, let me tell you about my very favorite.
This gentleman was already past 90 when I met him, a widower for more than 30 years who still loved to talk about his wife. He would tell me (and anyone else who would listen) the same stories, over and over. I never got tired of hearing them. I encouraged it. I would usually prompt him by saying:
"I love this picture of you and your wife on your wedding day. You both look so happy."
"Oh, we were!"
And he would start from the beginning.
"We met at a baseball game. I played baseball; there wasn't much else to do. It was the depression you know. There was no work to be had. So, a friend of hers took her to this game I was playing in, and I hit a home run and we won the game. I guess that impressed her because she insisted on meeting me."
He would go on to tell me about how they "went steady" for two years because he was in debt and couldn't get a job ("I was willing and able! There was just no work to be had.").
He wouldn't get married while he was in debt. He didn't want to bring that burden into their marriage. He will proudly tell you, how his wife (then fiancee) saved up her earnings (she was a secretary) and paid his debtor. "She said, 'There! Now we're getting married!" And I do love that wedding photo. The same devilish grin he still has…him and his wife looking so, so happy. And young. They were both only about twenty.
Then we get into the stories I love most and the stories that I think he loved most. He certainly repeated them the most, anyways.
"I was overseas for more than a year during the war (the war being WWII) and I never even looked at another woman (he shrugs as if this is nothing impressive). I just wasn't even tempted. Why would I be when I had such a wonderful woman at home? And I never worried about her being unfaithful at home, ever. We loved each other. And when I came home…I'll never forget how she ran from the kitchen into my arms. She jumped on me and wouldn't let go."
Then he would tell stories of his children. They had five children and would have had more but…
"The doctor was taking her to the operating room- they knew that they had to do a c-section because the last child had to be delivered that way- and the doctor said, 'we will be all done within two hours'. Well, two hours came and went…and then it was four…then six…then eight…and no one could tell me anything. It was the longest day of my life. Awful… then the doctor finally came back out to me and said, 'Well, we almost lost them, but we managed to save both your wife and your new son'. They couldn't stop my wife from bleeding so they had to do a hysterectomy… but the doctor worked hard to save her ovaries. The doctor said she was too young to not enjoy sex. (he winks at me) We were very thankful for that."
If you kept listening, he would tell you that when he and his wife were getting older they agreed to never argue anymore, and they didn't. "We wanted to just enjoy each other; we didn't want to waste any of our time together."
I didn't often hear about his wife getting sick and how she died...those stories were still very painful to tell.
But what he did talk about was how he lived his life after she died.
This was my very favorite story. He told it all the time. I would walk by his room or by the dining room table and I would here him telling this story.
The story was about how he never had another woman after his wife.
"I got plenty of offers (he winks), but I always told them that I wanted to live with my happy memories."
"I wanted to live with my happy memories."
I heard that so many times.
"There was a girl that I went out with in high school who got in touch with me after my wife passed away, but I told her I wasn't interested. I wanted to live with my wonderful memories. There was a woman from the AO (the company he worked for) who kept inviting me over to her house at night (gives me a look with one of his crooked eyebrows raised), but I wasn't tempted. I just told her I was happier living with my memories. You see, my wife was such a wonderful woman, and when I die, I'm hoping I will get to see her again. Until then, I would rather just live with my many wonderful memories."
I would say something like, "I hope someone loves me like that someday."
And he would say, "Well if you have a boyfriend, bring him here! I'll give him a talking to and make sure he deserves you. Some men only want one thing, you know." And he would give me another wink and that devilish grin.
This gentleman passed away last year. I went to see him a couple days beforehand, we all knew the end was close. He couldn't talk but he looked me in the eyes and nodded a little when I spoke to him. All his family was around him and they didn't really know me, so I just said something pithy about how nice it was that all his children and grandchildren came. Then I told him I would see him in a couple days, kissed his forehead, and left. That was the last time I saw him.
What I really wanted to do was hold his hand and say:
"Thank you for loving one woman all of your days."
He will never know how much his stories meant to me.
The last time I got to hear those stories was about a week before he died.
So, people do talk about "all the great sex" they had during their life when they are on their death bed, but they don't talk about "great sex" the way they do in Playboy or Cosmopolitan. They wrap it all up with love and faithfulness and commitment and family…you know, the way it is supposed to be; but they DO talk about it.
And you know what, maybe I won't be lucky enough to have a love story that carries me to where this widower was at the end of his life. Maybe I won't be "90 years old in the nursing home" talking about truly great intimacy as he did… but I hope I will be, and I hope I have a husband who treasures intimacy with me the way my favorite widower valued it with his wife... faithful to her for more than 30 years after her death.
THAT is LOVE.
Image found on Google ages ago, unfortunately can't locate the link.
