Required Reading

Friday, May 20, 2011

This is Grady.

  *shared with their permission
Tell me you've seen anything cuter so I can tell you you're lying.

"Lawd I only know
What I know
The passing years will show
You kept my love so young
So new.

And time after time

You'll hear me say that I'm
So lucky
So lucky
to be loving you."

~ Dinah Washington's Time After Time
_______________________________________

Today at Grady, I saw this lovely couple who--just last Saturday--had celebrated their sixty-first wedding anniversary. . . .

Me:  "Sixty-one years! Wow! That's amazing."

Him:  "Shooooot. Who you tellin'? These days folks act like they can't even stand to be together for sixty-one minutes."

Her:  "Sixty-one SECONDS."

Laughter.

Me:  "Alright. I've only been married for seven years and sixty-one seconds. So tell me--what's the secret to staying married for sixty-one years?"

Both smile real sweet and turn their faces toward each other. Kind of like they needed to pow wow on an answer before giving one. Husband keeps looking at wife and smiles. She blushes a little bit.

Him:  "I guess you jest need to love each other."

Her (still looking at Him):  "And forgive each other."

Him:  "Loving each other IS forgiving each other."

Her:  Says nothing, but looks at him so lovingly that it explains exactly why they have been married for sixty-odd years. 

::sigh::
  
Loving each other is forgiving each other? Whew. That's a good word, man.


See? This is what goes down at Grady Hospital, man. This. More than the gunshots and the car wrecks they mention on the news. We do those well, yes. But love and wisdom and heart? Yeah man, just like traumas, we get that here, too.  Every single day.

This is Grady.

Nope,  it's not what we're famous for. . . .but it should be.

***
Happy Friday, y'all. (And happy belated anniversary, Mr. and Mrs. H.!) 

*** 
If you don't know anything about Dinah Washington, know this: 
Her voice is like butta, do you hear me? Butta. Please get to know her.
Ella and Billie? I love y'all. Lord knows I do. But that Dinah? Now that's my girl. She is THE TRUTH.

 Oh yeah. . . and if after this, if you have a minute? Read this post with a link to my favorite Dinah song EVER.

5 comments:

  1. Sixty-one years. Bless, bless.
    Thank-you for being the one to share the Wisdom of Grady. The world needs that. And Dinah too.

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  2. My eyes are tearing up... I can only hope to be blessed like this.

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  3. Awesome, awesome!!! What a precious pic!

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  4. Wow. Husband and I are coming up on 12 years of marriage, and I think I understand this now--where forgiveness equals acceptance.

    So beautiful

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"Tell me something good. . . tell me that you like it, yeah." ~ Chaka Khan