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Sunday, March 10, 2013

My Husband's Spectacles


Does the title sound familiar? It is from "My Grandma’s Spectacles" which is an account of an old woman searching for her spectacles all over the house, upturning all furniture only to find out that she was wearing it over her head. Mine has a different angle, it’s my husband’s, let me tell you about him first but let’s just keep it within us ok, deal?

He is 76 years old, nine years my senior.  As I compare him to his contemporaries, he looks younger. He is still active as he attends to his furniture business every day.  He has no serious health problems except for some arthritic pains if he doesn’t watch his diet and problems on his digestion if he overeats. You see, if we based it on Louis Vanrenen’s body typing, his is “earth” so the problem gravitates on digestion and metabolism while I am of “air” type, which is on breathing and the respiratory.

One common problem we have is forgetfulness, but we have mastered the art of denying we forget things or else one of us will tease the other as “It’s because you’re oldie!” instead we say,  “It’s one of our senior moments”. One thing for sure despite this is we do not forget we are husband and wife.

One day I had an engagement in my volunteer work. I got myself ready.  I took my eyeglasses and wore them to be sure I won’t forget, as were my previous experiences. I kept the case in my bag. I was about to leave but my attention was caught by a reporter on TV that I tarried a while to listen. After ten minutes I decided to go. Going out of the living room one has to pass by a black cabinet with inlaid white buttons, the top of it   was a favorite receptacle of our eyeglasses every time we removed them when not in use. That moment I noticed a pair of eyeglasses, so thinking it was still mine I took them and placed it inside the case, which I got from my bag.  I went out to meet a friend who was waiting for me.

As my friend and I were talking my husband came and inquired softly if I knew who got his eyeglasses on top of the cabinet.  He said he couldn’t forget he left them there before he went to the toilet. “Am I that old to forget in just a short while? Its disappearance is mysterious!” he was thinking a loud.

I have no idea I told him and that we were in a hurry to leave. I bade him goodbye and left. My husband was so frantic in searching the whole house for his precious spectacles. He pulled and pushed his drawers many times to find out if he left them inside. He went to the toilet to be sure he didn’t leave them there. He went upstairs to see any probable place where he can find them. But they were not  in sight. So he resigned to the idea of recovering his eye shield. He just sat helplessly maybe thinking if he was really old.

Eight hours after, I returned home. I removed my eyeglasses to let my eyes rest and placed them on top of the black cabinet. I went about puttering in the kitchen then I remembered I have something to search on the web. So I went to my husband’s table where I placed my bag, unzipped it and got my eyeglasses case. When I opened the case I saw that the glasses inside were bigger and darker in shade than mine.  I felt guilty that I have caused my husband ‘s worry over the loss. I got it by mistake!

I asked my husband if that was what he was looking for.  Instead of blaming me for my forgetfulness   his face broke into a mixture of a smile, excitement and pride and blurted out, “ I told you so, I am not yet old!”.

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