yesterday i met an old man and an old woman. they had sadness in their lives everyday, but they were a happy couple.

the old man looked like a typical old man in singapore, with his thin-striped light blue shirt that was slightly crumpled, shorts that never made it to the knee, and simple slippers. he was tall and skinny and lanky, his face long and wrinkly, but hardly ever caught without a smile on it. he spoke mandarin and fluent malay. he was always eager to talk, but didn't speak excessively.

the lanky old man pushed a wheelchair along, with a backpack hanging on one of the handles, into the room i was in. serene and doe-eyed as could be was his wife. she was in the wheelchair. the old woman seemed quiet and timid, she didn't speak at all. but she did not strike me as unpleasant, for her face was very friendly. she wore a baby pink t-shirt and trousers of which color i cannot seem to recall.

the couple came in and greeted the therapist heartily. apparently they had been coming in for sessions regularly for quite some time now. i injected my greeting with enthusiasm and introduced myself as a student.

after sitting the old woman down at a table, the therapist whipped out a piece of cross-stitch cloth with a heart already sewn on it and asked the old woman to continue working on the "handphone pouch". stitch by stitch she poked and pulled the needle as instructed. she was a proper woman, you could tell by the way she sewed. the lax string had to be adjusted to a certain length before she made another stitch, and every stitch had to be tugged to a good tautness.

her husband sat down at the table and spoke to me, in mandarin no doubt. i struggled through the conversation but i survived, managing to bring across at least the essence of what i meant in every sentence.

"why is it you can speak malay, uncle?"
"i'm from malaysia. we both were, long ago. she used to understand malay too."

later, the old woman beamed and grinned as she presented the little pouch to her one and only. we all kicked up a big fuss about how nice the pouch was, and how well she did. the old man promptly fitted his phone into it and we all clapped. "we'll go home and show our son." the old man said. his wife smiled and put her head down shyly.

"this is our old photo." he said suddenly, while the therapist was away. he slid his phone towards me across the table with a smile. displayed as the wallpaper was a black and white photo of a young couple, in the classic studio arrangement, woman in front of man, both gazing into the air. they were really beautiful.

"wow. is this your wedding photo?" i looked up at him.

he thought for a while. "before our wedding. during our engagement."

i stared at the picture for a minute more, pressing the cancel button so that the backlight of the phone wouldn't go off. i don't know why, but old photos amaze me. add on to it's age the fact that i was looking at the very same people fifty or sixty years later. i did not know which to smile more at-- the picture, or the couple in front of me.

"so who chased who first?" the therapist asked, when she had returned, with a cheekiness in her tone.

"who chased who first?" the old man asked his wife in dialect, prompting her response.

"he chased me first!" she replied in laughter. she lowered her head again shyly as we all giggled together.

"she can remember these things from long ago. but recent happenings, she forgets." the old man said to me.

i nodded with a sympathetic face.

i have my grandma at home. i know when there's something wrong with an old person's body. you can see it in their gaze.

"mrs. L has dementia. " the therapist told me. "her husband is very loyal. he takes care of her. for the family taking care of a dementia patient it can be very hard sometimes, especially continuously, it gets very..."

depressing, i wanted to say.

"...tiring. we advised him to take her to daycare a few times a week but, he finds it hard to let go. so she comes here for therapy, and also so that he can talk to us for a bit."

"it's so sweet." i said softly.

"it is." she replied.