When I was about ten I suddenly realized my paternal grandparents were old. In my young mind that meant they could die at any moment so I began watching them carefully whenever they came to visit. My grandfather liked to nap after lunch in the living room, reclining in my mother's easy chair with a crocheted afghan tucked around his shoulders. I used to stand next to the chair looking down at him, checking for the rise and fall of his chest beneath the blanket. Then I would look in on my grandmother, who preferred to nap in the bedroom where she could fall asleep on top of the coverlet listening to the afternoon baseball game on her black transistor radio. I counted their breaths, holding my own in the spaces between theirs, inhaling the strong tobacco scent of my grandfather and then the fainter fragrance of my grandmother's perfume.

During one of their visits I awoke early in the morning to find the kitchen empty. Usually my grandmother was busy next to the stove, making my grandfather's breakfast. I felt a moment of panic and walked quickly down the carpeted hallway to the guest room, listened at the door, and hearing nothing, slowly pushed it open. From the doorway I could see my grandfather lying on his side in the bed, gently snoring, but I couldn't see my grandmother. I looked through the house, checking the bathrooms and kitchen again, and returned to their room when I couldn't find her. I tiptoed into the bedroom and as I edged closer to the bed, I saw that they were lying like spoons, my grandmother cradled in the hollow of my grandfather's body. She was fast asleep, smiling slightly in her husband's embrace, her hand lightly resting on his arm.

I stood frozen there for several minutes, simply watching them. Seeing them being so unconsciously tender with one another made me feel peaceful inside, whole. That moment has stayed with me. It is one of first images I think of when I hear the word love.

My mother's parents, Grandma and Grandpa Wilcox, were much younger and they rarely napped so I never felt the same need to monitor their breathing the way I did my father's parents. They had five children (my mother was the eldest and their youngest son was only five years older than I was) so their small house was always crowded, filled with aunts and uncles and cousins. Visits with them were exciting and full of activity. My grandma never seemed to sit down; she was always working in the kitchen preparing meals or finding toys and colouring books to occupy the children underfoot. My grandpa was easy going and sociable, often taking me and my sister shopping in stores where he knew all the salesclerks by name. Out driving, we couldn't stop at a red light without people on the street calling out greetings or passengers in the car next to us honking a hello. Grandpa was a playful man who liked to tease Grandma, pinching her bottom when he passed her in the hallway and kissing her on the back of the neck while she stood at the sink washing dishes.

My grandparents' relationships were very different from each other: I couldn't imagine Grandpa Sheppard ever goosing his wife. But that was what was so wonderful about knowing all of them - they were able to show me two distinct and successful marriages. The greatest gift my grandparents ever gave me was to simply love each other, letting me spend my childhood watching them express that love in their own unique ways while they went about the day-to-day business of living.

During my second year of university I came home on a reading break to find my mother sobbing, her head cradled in her hands. I stood at the entrance to the room, afraid to ask her why she was crying. When she finally spoke, she told me my father didn't love her anymore.

I felt something break inside me with her words. I didn't understand how my father could just stop loving my mother How could he spend decades living with her and one day simply walk away? When I asked him to explain, he ended up walking away from me, as well.

I married my high school sweetheart, a boy who left notes on my desk during English class and wrote me songs on his guitar using the only three chords he knew. We've been together for eighteen years and have stumbled into adulthood in each other's arms. I can't imagine ever waking up in the morning without the presence of this deep and abiding love I feel for Paul. The memory of my mother weeping makes me cautious at times in my own marriage, a bit afraid. But that fear is tempered by all the loving words and gestures I witnessed between my grandparents.

Both Paul's and my parents are divorced now. We visit their separate homes with our daughter Emma. I wonder if she thinks this is inevitable, that all older people live alone and that she will, too.

In today's age of starter marriages and serial monogamy, Emma will never lack examples of how to end a marriage. But, I wonder how she will create an enduring relationship in a culture where marriage partners are often seen as disposable. Where will she see married couples in their sixties and seventies who have found their way through the inevitable hardships and difficulties life brings to grow old together. How will she know that love can be forever when there are no role models in her life who can show her that?

Paul and I will try. Emma learns everyday by watching me that it is possible to build a life with a man, to trust that the relationship will endure.. But we are too young; our marriage is still a work-in-progress. We cannot show her what a lifetime of loving each other will look like until she is already middle-aged.

Paul's parents have been kind to their children by being kind to each other. They are willing to celebrate holidays together so that Paul and his siblings do not have to choose between them. It is all very civilized and polite, and the grandchildren are able to see that people who are divorced can still get along.

And yet, on some level, it makes me incredibly sad that Emma sees her grandparents interacting this way. She will never walk into the kitchen for a glass of juice and catch them in a kiss. She will never go for a walk with them to the park, running ahead while they trail, hand-in-hand, behind her. When I see Emma witness the stiff formality between her grandparents I want to shout " It isn't always like this, Please, please don't think this is the only way it can be!"

I want to tell her about her great-grandparents but there is so much that cannot be put into words. How do I describe the way they looked at each other across the dinner table, the lilt of my grandfather's voice when he spoke his wife's name, the way he helped her on with her coat, the easy familiar way they fit together? I wish I had paid closer attention then so I could relate it more clearly now. But I took it all for granted, thought that was what every marriage was, never imagined I would have to recount it as a rarity to my own child. I assumed she would see it all for herself, that growing up surrounded by such love would be her legacy, too.

Somehow I'll have to find a way to explain to Emma that growing old does not mean growing unlovable. That a man can hold her dear to his heart from the moment he meets her until the moment he dies. That she can bear their children, her body soften and round with the weight of them in her womb, and he will still desire her. That her hair may turn white, deep lines etch themselves into her face and he will think her beautiful.

She needs to know that she can share a bed with a man for more than fifty years, fall asleep beside him on eighteen thousand nights and still awake each morning in his embrace.

It is all possible. It isn't a fairytale. I've seen it happen twice and my heart remembers.