“Always be nice to anybody who has access to your toothbrush”, is what the elderly gentleman says to Denzel Washington’s character in a movie I glanced at last night. My parents were together till my father passed a few years ago. I don’t know for how many years they were married. For the purposes of the story, I’ll just say: Forever.
One day after my father had retired, I visited our family home to find my father leaning across the front gate. He had apparently been standing there for a while already. There was really nothing much to stare at on the street – just the odd passer by. So there seemed little sense in what he was doing. My mom on the other hand was in the back of the house, in the kitchen. Now I come from humble beginnings – so the front of the house and the back of the house were not that far apart.
I asked my dad why he was literally ‘hanging’ over the gate. His answer quite simply was that this was the furthest point from my mother.
I laughed then. I understand now.
Long distance relationships are hard. NO DISTANCE relationships can be even harder.
Lebanese writer, Kahlil Gibran wrote in his book, The Prophet: “Let there be spaces in your togetherness…. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
