She dances for the two of them, with grace and love

BEVERLY BECKHAM

The Boston Globe

It makes me happy to think about them, two people I don’t know, a man and a woman with whom I shared a waiting room for a little over an hour a few weeks ago.

There were six of us in the room, five waiting for the same doctor who’s been known to run a little behind, not because he’s on a break somewhere, reading a John Grisham novel, but because he spends extra time with people who need extra time. And don’t we all need extra time these days?

I was the last to enter this room where two women separated by three chairs were chatting like old friends. A younger woman was reading, and an older man and woman, definitely a couple, were attempting to squeeze into an oversized chair to sit together.

The man caught my attention because he reminded me of my uncle. He was tall and thin, his hair was gray, and he wore big, brown framed glasses. And on his head was a baseball hat bedecked, just like my uncle’s, with pins and patches, of what kind I don’t know because I couldn’t read them from across the room (which is why I was at the eye doctor).

The man seemed determined to sit in the-oversized-for-one but tight-fit-for two-chair. He leaned on his cane and sat down gently, wriggling himself into his corner. Then he grinned at his wife and with his left hand patted the chair, a gesture that said, “Come sit beside me.”

Which she did. She didn’t sigh and say, “Don’t be ridiculous. I won’t fit.” She didn’t point out the fact that there were plenty of empty chairs in the room so no need to squeeze into this one. She didn’t question his judgment at all. She smiled. Then she sat down. And she wriggled, too.

I watched the pair of them. He was like a boy on a Ferris wheel, brimming with excitement or anticipation or maybe just energy, sitting but not quite still, stopped, but still moving. She patted his knee. He met her eyes. And at the same time, they both laughed.

An assistant appeared in the doorway, a young woman, who called out a name and one of the talkers said, “That’s me,” stood up, and followed her down the hall. Five minutes later, another name was called and the woman who was reading followed her. Then it was the other talker’s turn.

Now there were just three of us in the waiting room.

“What time was your appointment?” Maybe that’s how it began. Or maybe I asked, “Where do you live?” Or maybe she said, “I think I’m going to miss my 1 o’clock Zoom meeting.” I don’t remember. This happened two weeks ago. The details are gone.

What I do remember is that as we chatted she kept turning to her husband, making sure that he was included in the conversation. He was. He made jokes, little asides, and I saw the boy in him, not just the man. “Sixty-three years. That’s how long we’ve been married,” she said to me, her eyes on him.

He grinned, put his hand to hat, made a tipping gesture, then leaned toward her and said something that made her laugh.

“We used to live in Quincy,” she told me, again turning to him as she said this, as she explained that they had recently moved to Rockland to be near one of their children.

“Isn’t that right?” she asked.

“That’s right,” he said.

“The doctor sees us at the same time now because he has dementia and doesn’t understand.” She softened these words by leaning toward him and touching his arm.

I didn’t see his dementia. I didn’t see bewilderment or fear in his eyes.

And I saw only love in hers.

The Zoom meeting is a support group, the woman explained, holding her husband’s hand, talking to me but all the while talking to him, too. Including him.

“Does it help?” I asked.

“A little,” she said.

The assistant returned and called the couple’s name. Holding on to the arm of the chair, the woman pulled herself up, then helped her husband.

They did not dance across the room. They weren’t Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in an old black and white movie gracefully exiting a stage.

But what struck me as I watched them leave is that they are dance partners. She leads and he follows and though he’s forgotten most of the steps, she has not. But she is dancing for the two of them now and it’s hard, though like Ginger Rogers she makes it look easy, all of it: speaking for him, caring for him, including him.

And that this is more than just grace. This is love.