00:13What is love Antony? What is love?
00:15This is about as good as it gets.
00:21And it seems to get better as we get older.
00:24But there will probably be a tipping point
00:28where we donāt know whatās going to happen
00:31and weāll just have to be willing to slide together
00:35down some slippery slope.
00:52When we got married we worked out a series of vows
00:58which we wrote out and we said to each other.
01:02I canāt really remember what they were
01:06except that it was something like
01:11that we hope one day we will sit here in our old age
01:16still together and just enjoy this life that weāve been given.
01:35Maybe we do need to renew our vows
01:37so that we remember what we said.
01:40But the one that stands out quite strongly
01:42which I feel weāre embodying now is,
01:45āMay our home be a place where people can accept themselves.ā
01:50Which, when we drew that up, was a beautiful intention
01:55and I feel like weāre really living that.
02:03The other was that we donāt hide behind each other.
02:08That we have our own identity and are at one with ourselves.
02:15That weāre not hiding behind another person
02:19or expecting them to fulfil what is important to us.
02:34What is often hard to accept when you live so much inside yourself
02:40is that the person in front of you is very different to you.
02:48I think in a marriage thatās the hardest thing...
02:50to realise that some of the differences
02:55that you fell in love with in the beginning
02:57are the things that bug you later.
03:01Iāve seen that in myself and with others.
03:05So those are the little daily things
03:11that need to be communicated and sat down and made a compromise.
03:27I see that if I leave the butter out after I make toast
03:31that my wife is furious... daily.
03:37Then I think the one way I can show a commitment to the relationship
03:42is to either not have toast at all,
03:47or to have toast without butter,
03:49or to put the butter away.
03:53And I donāt have to talk to her about it,
03:56I donāt have to be analytical about it,
03:59you know, one picks it up.
04:01And of course there are things I do that will infuriate her
04:06that I donāt pick up.
04:10sheās not scared of me in that way.
04:21If I look back, there are stages in a married life.
04:29Thereās the initial excitement of being together.
04:35And then of course the utter astonishment of having children.
04:40That was just wonderful, beyond measure.
04:52Sometimes it was really hard work.
04:57We had to earn a living.
05:01I had to travel to work.
05:05There were times we had to be apart, times we came together.
05:12And we didnāt resist it or complain... we just did it.
05:18And in retrospect that doing of it
05:22was a wonderful cementing of the relationship.
05:35Since then Iāve stopped travelling.
05:43We spend all our time together now, pretty much.
05:47We sleep together, we eat together, we drink together.
05:52And itās wonderful and thereās a whole new adjustment that happens.
05:58And I think thatās really precious.
06:01People talk about itās difficult when your children leave home...
06:06of course our children have left home long ago...
06:09but for us itās been wonderful.
06:12Weāve had time on our own
06:14and we make as much use of it as we can.
06:32I think itās very important to find something
06:35when your children leave home,
06:37that the two of you do together that is meaningful
06:40and nourishing to both of you.
06:49When I look around at my family and my friends,
06:52thatās often when couples go different ways.
06:56Then one feels that youāre living two separate lives.
07:02And itās very difficult to find a place of connection
07:07because your priorities have been work, or children, or both.
07:16And now none of those are something that you share anymore.
07:26I never give advice...
07:30I wouldnāt take it anyway.
07:32But for us, whatās really helped was having, as Margie says,
07:38not only a common direction in our life
07:42but a sense that we actually deliberately
07:46do things together that are meaningful to us.
07:59Every night we gather around sunset
08:04and we watch the sun go down.
08:12In a sense, ritual in that way was always a part of our life.
08:18So we always have watched the sun go down.
08:22It was always important for us.
08:25And when the children were younger they would join us.
08:30And now that theyāre not here
08:33we sit together and we talk about them all the time.
08:39Not all the time darling.
08:41But itās quite a deliberate, ritualised part of the day.
08:47So we make it precious, I think thatās what we try and do.
08:54And it does become precious.
08:56Not so much because we set out to make something precious
09:01but we decided how we wanted to spend that time together.
09:07And it turned out to be precious, which is wonderful.
09:28I feel quite strongly, growing older,
09:33that however much I look back to
09:36a more romantic postcard version of what life could be
09:44that something fantastically, wonderfully ordinary has taken its place.
10:01Ordinary is extraordinary.
10:05If you think of your life, itās the little things,
10:08the ordinary little things,
10:11that are very meaningful and you donāt forget them.
10:15Little kindnesses, little actions
10:18that you donāt expect to happen, are the ordinary.
10:29And I think one of the most ordinary things
10:31that we humans are made to do
10:34is to be present and listen to each other.
10:37And I think itās only when we stop
10:41that we see the extraordinary in the ordinary,
10:45when we really stop and feel and hear.
11:14In the same way that the leaves change in spring and fall in autumn
11:21and that certain birds appear at certain times of the year
11:25and the sun comes and the wind goes...
11:28all of that is part of my life.
11:33And she is absolutely, intimately as much a part of it as all of that.
11:43I live in the veld (nature) and my wife.
11:47Thatās how it feels.
11:49Iām so pleased you live in me.
11:52Iād like to think that she feels something of the same.
11:58Thereās a sense of almost the inevitability of
12:02looking around and finding you here next to me
12:05in the same way that I lift the blind in the morning
12:09and see the sun come up.
12:11That has been a discovery for me that I did not anticipate.
12:18And I wish it for everybody.
12:23And I think if one gives oneself a chance
12:26it will appear all by itself.
12:36If I look over one day and sheās not there, it will be heartbreaking.
12:41Thatās absolutely true.
12:47I will then as best I can
12:51honour the life that weāve had together.
13:08and my life will continue.
13:11Saying āshe is my lifeā doesnāt mean
13:15that I have no life without her.
13:18Saying āshe is my lifeā means that
13:23when sheās with me, itās full of her.
13:28It means that when she dies and Iām still around
13:33that my life will consist of whatever there is around me.
13:39And that almost my duty to her
13:46would be to live that life as best as I can.
13:52As she mentioned, we undertook not to hide behind each other,
13:59that I only live through you.
14:02I live through you, but thatās just the beginning, itās not the end.
14:07So that when you die Iāll weep,
14:10Iāll build you a fantastic grave overlooking the hills,
14:15and weāll have sirens and choirs of angels all over the place.
14:21And then Iāll play music with the angels.
14:26Thatās how it feels to me.
14:30And Iām not looking forward to it.
14:33It sounds like you are... the choir of angels.
14:37Shall I bring them on now?
14:50I think the way I would honour her
14:52would be to get on with the life that is left for me.
14:57Thatās what she would wish for me, more than anything.
15:03She would want me to see the sun come up,
15:10to dig in the garden,
15:12to look after visitors,
15:14to make the bed properly at last.
15:22But I think that she would trust me
15:25that however sad it was
15:28that sadness would become my life
15:31and would be manure for whatever last days are left
15:39which are probably not going to be very many.
15:45But that would be a huge event for me.
15:59Iāve got a little poem that Iād like to recite if I may?
16:07Iāll try and remember it.
16:12I shaved my head for the children of Palestine.
16:19I swept up the leaves in the Jewish cemetery.
16:28My wife wrapped presents for the old ladies in the frail care home.
16:40My daughter washed the dishes after lunch.
16:49The Buddha of Compassion has 84 000 hands.
16:59Which of those are yours?
![#Uwu #Uwuvoice #Itshannahowo Hannah UwU || Hannah UwU voice ā¤ [Compilation]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2F2V2xm_LDYPA%2Fhqdefault.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
