This Is His Life

First-generation immigrants 
from a traditionally patriarchal
society it always amazed me that
she was the household earner, and
he, assailed by a succession of
maladies, only sporadically held
a job. In the quarter-century we
have been neighbours, they have
been our friends, a comfortable fit
in values and concerns with the
inevitable exceptions of origin
and tradition. We've witnessed
their toddlers grown to adulthood
toward their separate futures. The
woman whose exotic beauty
left me speechless hides somewhere
deep within a now-familiar older
version. The man whose travails
we knew intimately, now long a
homebody and never short on
capably handling home affairs
moves in and out of the black gloom
of depression, lifted at intimate
encounters. That much and more
I can understand. He whiles away
time in a manner that confounds my
understanding. No curiosity to be
quelled and satisfied by reading,
not a newspaper, nor a journal. There
are no books that have yet piqued
his interest. His reading skills and
interests start and stop with the
household bills. And I think to
myself: how utterly mind-desolate,
how sad, how bereft of value.
Is this a quality life well-lived?