She peered across the bench at her husband.  Today had been their 65^th anniversary, but she doubted he remembered.  Alzheimer’s disease had robbed him of his memory long ago.  She had refused to send him to a nursing home, no matter how frail they both got.  It broke her heart to watch him struggle with the simplest actions, but it was also the smallest things that would make her heart soar.  Just the other day, right before falling asleep, he had grasped her hand and, staring off into the distance, he recounted the first day they met.  He talked of the beautiful waitress who had kicked him out of his favorite restaurant.  He couldn’t remember exactly why but he did remember waiting outside for three hours just to ask her to the prom.  At the end he stared into her eyes and murmured, “I love you,” before drifting off to sleep.  She savored moments like these.  They had both just turned 90 years old, and their health was rapidly disintegrating.  She knew they didn’t have many moments left.  As she watched the sun set her husband stirred.  They sat in silence as a deep orange burnt across the sky.  Her heart was racing and her legs tensed up as she sensed the coming change.  He reached across to hold her hand in his.

“Dear, don’t worry, we are rather like the sun,” he said. “Even when we are gone we shall be reflected in the moon.”

She slid up next to him and rested her head on his shoulder, letting herself relax and feeling him do the same.  Together they turned to face the oncoming cloud of the unknown.   The sun was barely visible now.  She supposed people were normally frightened for this moment in their lives, but with his body pressed to hers all she felt was tranquility.  The sun slipped away as, with one final squeeze of their hands, the last breath slipped from their bodies.  A sort of serenity was visible on their faces as the moon shone above even brighter than before.