Dear stranger,

The sky is gray today, and the looming clouds are threatening rain at any moment. It’s mid-afternoon, with just a few people on the street, and you’re arm-in-arm with a woman who I assume is your wife. You hold your left elbow crooked just enough that she can tuck her right one in as you cross the street together. The two of you are strolling down the street without any particular rush, and you have a cadence to your steps that suggests you are accustomed to walking together. I think you’re perhaps seventy five years old — Asian — with crinkling smile lines around your eyes and a weathered look to your skin.

Both you and your wife wear knitted caps and layered clothes. I wonder why you’re walking instead of driving. It is, after all, quite cold. Maybe your children don’t live nearby, or maybe you don’t have any children at all. Or perhaps the two of you just felt like taking a walk today. In any case, stranger, I don’t think it matters to you. I don’t remember the last time I saw someone looking so content. It’s not that you’re beaming as you walk, but you radiate a certain sense of completeness found only in a man that has found his true other half. The two of you are not walking the way lovesick teenagers do: with fluttering hands and kisses, giggling like mad. Unlike them, you don’t need to prove to anyone how much you love your wife. Instead, the steady rhythm of your walking and the warmth of your gaze on her face show how much love you share.

Stranger, I think you are a very lucky person. It’s not often someone of your age can be described as being as carefree and confident as you are. The edges of your lips are lifted slightly enough that you are neither frowning nor beaming. You possess a simple happiness that isn’t exactly spectacular, and yet is eye-catching anyway. A lot of people like to talk about cute old couples, stranger, but you and your wife are admirable not only because you’re together at an old age; you are admirable because of they way you still walk together after so many years — as if no matter what, you will always be able to turn to your left and see your wife there with you.

Despite the inevitable obstacles that come with sharing a life with another person, I imagine the two of you have always looked to each other for help. Just by the way you walk, I can see that the two of you depend on each other for security and perhaps for sanity. From your tanned and rough skin, I imagine that you have worked hard to be able to live the simple fulfilling life you have now. However, your wife’s skin is not quite as weathered. Did you work so that she would not have to? Or did the two of you struggle together? It’s difficult to imagine what kind of life the two of you have shared, stranger. But from what I can see, the two of you have always had each other. And perhaps that’s the most important thing of all.

Sincerely,
Amelia