someday sweetie, this could be us...

True story, only names have been changed:

Christine and Matteo are in their 80s and have spent their many years together living in a small Italian village. Two weeks ago, Christine and Matteo were having a quiet evening at home. Christine was cleaning up in the kitchen while Matteo was in the other room watching TV. It was a typical evening until Christine slipped on some water that had been splashed on the floor while she cleaned.

The sudden fall found Christine on the floor, unable to move. She started yelling for her husband. She yelled and then screamed for him to come help her, but there was no response from the other room. He had the TV on so loud that he couldn't hear her. She continued to scream so loudly that the staff in the restaurant three floors down came out into the alley to see what was going on. She screamed down to them from her kitchen floor that she had fallen and was unable to move. She instructed them to go to the bakery that she and her husband owned and get the keys for her house so they could come up and help her.

A few men from the restaurant did so. They ran up the stairs and found Christine on the floor in the kitchen. They helped her up and carried her into her bedroom. They called for the ambulance. Once the ambulance had been called, Christine asked them if they could please go and tell Matteo what had happened!

Matteo had been watching TV the entire time and hadn't heard anything. Obviously. when he found out what his wife had been going through, he felt absolutely horrible.

Christine is back home and recovering from a broken hip. Because of her injuries, she and Matteo are sleeping in different rooms, but every night Matteo goes to sleep with a string tied around his wrist that passes over the wall between them and rests on Christine's bedside table so that she can pull him to attention if she should need him.