Ted and Elsie

When he looked at her, he didn’t see a tiny, frail old woman with failing eyesight and bony hands.

He saw the little girl with the strawberry-blonde hair, the freckles and the brown buckled shoes who he used to play on the bomb sites with.

He saw the shy young woman in the pale blue cardigan who he bought chips for after the dance.

He saw the woman whose big blue eyes looked up at him from under her hand-me-down lace veil.

He saw the exhausted new mother crying tears of joy as she held her tiny baby for the first time.

He saw the same mother try to hide her sadness as she folded the school uniform for the last time.

He saw the woman who smelled of lavender soap and Fairy Liquid, who smiled lovingly and made him his favourite dinner when he lost his job.

He saw the bathing beauty on the yellowed cine-film of Margate beach, eating the monkey’s peanuts at London Zoo and holding his hand on the choppy channel boat.

He saw the woman who wore her mum’s old ‘for best’ necklace in the front row at The Palladium.

He saw the woman in the green scarf pouring tea from a tartan flask at the allotment.

He saw the woman who said ‘I’ll be fine’ as he sat next to her hospital bed.

He saw a lifetime in the delicate lines on her face and the curls of her soft, white hair.

She turned to him and smiled a familiar smile. ‘I remember too’, she said.