October Flash - Day 19

The Flash Fiction Project at Google+ has something new going on! There will be a visual prompt for every day in October, and I'm going to try to write a (very) short piece for it every day as well. Due to time zone differences, I'll try writing and posting mine early in the morning, so it's a day after the original post for me, but still the same for them.

Let the fun begin! Here is the prompt for today:

Life is something you tend to get used to pretty quickly, as are those you usually share it with. Appreciation of your friends and families is rare these days, which - I assume - is one reason why we believe that nothing lasts forever.
My grandparents have taught me that it was different in their youth. Back then, you usually mated for life. Everything else would be a disgrace for the whole family, or both families to be exact. Since the choice of partners was limited by where you lived and how much money you had for travel, they contented themselves with little - love optional.
I think we will never understand how that worked, unless we watch people like my grandparents. They argue, sometimes, and they often make jokes at the expense of the other. But when you see them cooking together (my granddad is very progressive in that respect), or taking a walk, or even do something as boring as the laundry, you get a glimpse of the difference between them and us.
Since my grandparents were married, or probably even before that, they knew they would never leave each other's side except in death (although granddad used to joke that he wouldn't leave granny even then, preferring to haunt her as a ghost until he had persuaded her into following him). It gave their relationship a certain stability which survived every crisis.
I wish I could say that today we have the freedom of choice. All right, we have the freedom to choose with whom we spend how much of our time, sure. We cannot choose stability over that freedom of choice, though. Nowadays, you can't rely on it that the person you want in your life forever also wants you in his or her life forever. There's always the risk that someone will change his or her mind, and that someone could just as well be you. Never make that choice lightly.