Look at Us

Some songs are just songs. And some songs know exactly where to find you.

I Didn’t Know It Was Goodbye

In the summer of 2020, Jan and I drove up to visit Bob and Virginia.

We had seen them earlier that winter when they came down to visit us in Florida. Bob was 90. Virginia was 89. They had been married for more than 70 years.

At the time, I didn’t think much about it being our last visit.

That’s the funny thing about life. We’re usually pretty good at recognizing the big moments after they’ve already happened. While we’re standing in the middle of them, they just look like another Tuesday.

Bob was one of those guys who, once he got something in his head, there wasn’t much anybody could do about it.

That winter in Florida, he had discovered something he really liked.

Sunshine.

Not just sunshine. Florida sunshine.

Bob had one of those wheeled walkers with a little fold-down seat, and he would follow the sunshine around our place. Wherever the warmest patch happened to be, that’s where Bob wanted to sit.

He also loved our one-floor living.

No stairs. No going up and down. No laundry in the basement. No bedrooms on another floor.

And apparently, while he was sitting there soaking up the Florida sunshine, he was thinking.

When they got home, Bob announced to Jan’s sisters that they were moving.

Into an apartment.

One of them apparently wasn’t real happy about this.

“What the hell did they do to you guys down there in Florida?”

Apparently, she thought Jan and I had talked them into selling their condo.

We hadn’t.

That was all Bob.

Their condo had two floors, plus a basement. The bedrooms were upstairs and the laundry was downstairs. At 90, all those stairs were becoming a problem.

Bob had simply decided they needed a place where everything was on one floor.

Within a month, the condo was sold and they were in their new apartment.

Looking back, it was probably one of the best decisions he ever made.

Bob died less than a year later.

Look at Us

That summer, while we were visiting, I decided to play a song for them.

Vince Gill’s “Look at Us.”

I’d always liked the song, but sitting there with Bob and Virginia, it suddenly seemed like it had been written for them.

They had been married for more than 70 years.

Think about that.

Seventy years is a long time to share a life with somebody.

There are the good years. The hard years. The boring Tuesday afternoons. The Christmases. The arguments. The vacations. The bills. The illnesses. The family stuff.

All those ordinary little things that somehow become a life when you put enough of them together.

By then, Bob and Virginia weren’t quite the people they had once been.

They were slowing down. A little smaller. A little more fragile. A shadow of their former selves.

But they were still there.

Still together.

And then the song started.

I don’t remember exactly where everybody was sitting or what was on the television before I played it.

I remember Bob.

He started crying.

Then I noticed Virginia was crying too.

They weren’t making a big scene. There was no dramatic moment.

Just two people who had spent more than 70 years together, sitting beside each other and listening to a song about exactly that.

And I got a lump in my throat.

Because suddenly the song wasn’t just a song.

It was them.

Seventy Years

When you’re young, 70 years sounds almost impossible.

You hear a song about growing old together and think it’s romantic.

But after you’ve been married for a while, you start to understand that the real love story isn’t just the beginning.

It’s everything that comes after.

The ordinary days.

The hard days.

The years when you’re both working and wondering where the money went. The years when parents get sick. The years when friends disappear. The years when the house gets harder to take care of.

And eventually, the years when one of you needs a walker.

When stairs become a problem.

When neither of you is quite the person who walked down the aisle all those years ago.

Maybe that’s what I was seeing that day and didn’t fully understand at the time.

Bob and Virginia weren’t young anymore.

Their world had gotten smaller.

But after 70 years, they were still sitting beside each other.

Still leaning on each other.

And now they were both crying over a song about two people who had made it through the years.

What I Remember

I wish I had known that summer that it would be the last time I’d sit with Bob.

I probably would have paid more attention.

I would have taken another picture.

Maybe I would have stayed a little longer.

But I didn’t know.

None of us ever really do.

What I do remember is Bob sitting there crying.

And Virginia sitting beside him, crying too.

I don’t know exactly what was going through their minds.

Maybe they were remembering the young people they used to be.

Maybe they were thinking about everything they’d been through together.

Maybe they were simply hearing their own life in a song.

I didn’t ask.

Sometimes you don’t need to.

I’ve thought about that moment a lot since then.

Jan and I have been married a long time ourselves. Not 70 years. We’re not even close.

But close enough that I understand a little more of what Bob and Virginia were hearing that day.

Because when you’ve been together long enough, the person sitting beside you isn’t just your husband or wife anymore.

They’re part of almost every version of you that ever existed.

The young you.

The working you.

The broke you.

The healthy you.

The tired you.

The foolish you.

The older you.

They’ve seen all of it.

And they’re still sitting there.

That’s what I think about when I hear Vince Gill sing “Look at Us.”

I don’t really hear Vince Gill anymore.

I hear Bob.

I see Virginia sitting beside him.

And I think about those two people who somehow made it through more than 70 years together.

Then I look over at Jan.

And I think…

I hope we get that lucky.