Around 5 pm every day is the time for me to pick up my son.

by caip4427 on 2012-02-23 18:45:46

Around five o'clock every afternoon is the time I pick up my son. To take a shortcut, I always like to go around through that small alley. A couple also appears at that time, like an unchanging landscape, walking towards me against the sunset. The woman is able-bodied while the man is blind. The woman walks in front and the man follows behind. A small long chair is carried on the woman's left shoulder, her right hand pulling the man's left hand from behind. The man has a stringed instrument used for singing slung over his right shoulder, and he holds tightly to a small long table with his right hand. The man quietly follows the woman, one of his left hands held tightly by the woman's right hand. The alley is very narrow. I always put one foot down to steady myself against the wall while on my bicycle, smiling as I watch them pass by. The woman also smiles gently at me when she passes by my side, with a hint of shyness. Yet we have never spoken a single word. We just silently pass each other by. When our eyes meet, smiles become a warm river flowing slowly in our hearts. Every day, the woman holding the man's hand walks back and forth like this. Every day, I am moved by this unchanging scene. The calmness in the woman's smile and her right hand which always tightly holds the man's hand explains to me what "holding your hand, growing old with you" truly means.