Maureen and Paddy

“May I hold your hand Maureen”? 

It was March 17^th exactly sixty years ago today when I asked her that question. We had met, for the first time that day, at a local park where it seemed the entire Irish community of Boston had decided to picnic that year. I spied her the moment she entered the grounds with her family. Red hair and green eyes; I had never been so taken aback by a girl before.

“Why Paddy, do you think it would be proper to hold hands? After all, we have only just met”!

That was Maureen for you. Even at the age of sixteen she never gave someone an answer without first asking a few questions herself. As she grew into a young woman, then a wife and mother she only perfected this technique. Why she could dance circles around a question the way a leprechaun could dance around a field full of four-leaf clovers.

“But Maureen, I feel I've known you my whole life”. My voice cracked as my eyes swelled with the fear of her rejection.

She gazed off into some far away place. As I waited for her response, I worried she would never return to me and the park.

“Oh Paddy I'm so happy you said that, because I feel the same way to”.

That was sixty years, five children, fourteen grandchildren and a entire lifetime of holding hands ago.

It has been some time now since Maureen, and I have talked. Oh I talk to her every day. I tell her how the children and grand kids are doing. How I'm doing the best I can with the situation. Although I know, she'd demand I get on with my life and other things.

But today was special. Today when I arrived, the nurses had helped Maureen out of bed and into a wheelchair. We left the building and traveled the two blocks to that same park of sixty years ago. It was an unusually warm St. Patrick’s day for Boston, just as it had been so long ago.

I sat next to Maureen. Anguishing as our children and their children tried to draw her into conversation, only to be answered with a blank stare.

I could see she was getting tired, so I brought her over to our park bench. Placing the wheelchair at one end so I could sit right next to her. We sat silent for a few minutes, both simply listening and watching to nothing in particular. Just two old lovers on a park bench.

I turned to her then speaking from my broken heart.

“May I hold your hand Maureen”?

Maureen looked up, as if she had just noticed me sitting beside her.

“Why Paddy, do you think it would be proper to hold hands? After all, we have only just met”!