A Loving, Elderly Couple

Beauty ages well.

 The train from Chengdu, where Peace Corps HQ in China is, back to my site in Tianshui, Gansu is a 17-hour journey. After cutting the security line and sprinting to the train I sat down on the bottom of three bunks to catch my breath. I was still in shock I caught the train despite heavy Labor Day holiday traffic.

I looked up to an old man in an all-gray wool suit mumbling to the old lady across from him. She seemed to understand his words of mostly vowels and air. The old lady reached toward the ground reiterating that he should remove his shoes before simply pulling his feet out from them. The old man kept grumbling before laying down his head on his mounded blanket and pillow. The old women picked up his legs and placed them on the bed with force and precision that comes only from repetition. As a final touch of endearment, the women took off her coat and flung it across the man’s chest, already slow and steady to the beat of his snoring.


I took a deep sigh, thinking to myself, I’m in China. Woah. Almost two years.


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