A Love Story
I don’t usually write love stories. Today is the first day of spring and you know what “they” say. When spring comes around love is in the air. So today I will tell you a love story. My husband and I would have celebrated our 52nd anniversary on March 10 had he not passed away almost two years ago. So this is my love story. Mine, and most likely the same as many of yours.
I loved my husband. At first there was the passionate, hot, desirous love of youth. The obsession only teen aged girls know. The ardor of a girl becoming become a woman, in his arms and in his bed. My one and only, that fiery fervor would serve well to cleanse my heart of the ones who came before, at least for an enduring length of time if not forever. But as all young lovers know, that intensity does not last forever.
For those who are blessed that keenness transforms to sweetness. The sweetness of caring and consideration. Many times, it becomes the sweet love of a woman for the father of her children. The passionate love not entirely gone, but often smothered in the busyness of life as a family. It may burst forth now and then like a dormant volcano erupting after a period of silence. Unpredictable, surprising. Not always welcomed. Sometimes inconvenient, annoying, as interruptions in day-to-day routines can be. Most unexpected, it could result in an unplanned addition to the family!
From passion to sweetness, if you live long enough you may be blessed with another transformation. The passion and sweetness never gone completely but overwhelmed with comfortableness. Comfortableness does not have to be boring. The shared experiences of the years offer contentment and reassurance.
Comfortableness can offer security in times of desperation. Hard times like job losses, financial crises, deaths, heavy decisions, heartbreak. When you are comfortable you can cling to each other. Often no words are spoken, but the actions of holding onto each other offer solace. The love is there.
From passion to sweetness to comfortableness to an anchor in desperation, love may become a silent partner. Always there indeed. We both knew it was there even when it might appear to outsiders to have vanished. Even if all the forms had disappeared like a sinkhole swallowing vast chunks of our lives. As life was sucked from us by age and ailments it was still there. Steadfast.
It is still there yet. Somewhere out there in eternity. Manifest in the unceasing waves of the sea. Countless as the infinite number of grains of sand. Existing in the unfathomable universe. Or the ubiquitous “cloud” where all else seems to go. Of one thing I am sure. Though not live, passionate, sweet, comfortable, desperate, or silent, everlasting love is still there. And always will be.
Do you have a love story to tell? Is your love story anything like mine? Perhaps you have many love stories. I certainly have others to tell and just might do that some day! Maybe there is a love story coming my way I have yet to experience. Please share your thoughts in a comment below.
Wow this was a beautifully written piece. Thanks for sharing your story. My husband and I have been married 53 years, so I can relate.
Thank you Denise.
awesome writing:expression, as usual. I loved Joe like a brother ❤️
Thank you Glo. Joe was loved by many.
Poignant, insightful and beautifully written…
Thank you Robert.
This is spot on!!! We have been married 49 years this year, and each description of the “seasons” is so accurate. You put hearts on paper.
Thank you Jill. I love your phrase “Hearts on Paper” may have to use that at some point.
This is so sweet, Janet, and so true! Sometimes I wonder if that comfortable stage is something I should worry about, but it seems to track with your experience! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Suzanne. Nothing wrong with being comfortable. Comfort is longlasting!
this was wonderful. I felt a little tear at the beautiful message. And all true.
Made me jealous of how you put the pictures into your story.
Thank you Marlene. I know you have a long love story too. Thank Pinterest for the pics.
What a beautiful “telling” of a long love story… so very accurate. I was lucky to attend your wedding, and my little daughter was thrilled to be your flower girl…you were a young bride, as I was, and each stage of our love stories very similar…I believe as you do, that true love lasts forever…no matter what the future brings for you, THE LOVE STORY will endure in your heart and soul…
Thank you Linda. The years have flown by. We were each blessed to know true love.
I would love to share. Milan and I graduated high school together but did not know each other. (I had just moved to Tampa from Atlanta and spent my senior year sulking.) After school I would go for a bicycle ride to a nearby neighborhood where the houses were newer and the streets nicer. Many times I spotted a cute guy in his driveway washing and waxing his green Pontiac Firebird. I would ride round and round the block in hopes that he would notice me but I was much too shy to stop and introduce myself.
During this same time I was working part-time at a bank and began noticing this guy who was a mail runner for an insurance company in my building. We would flirt in the hallway and on the street as we saw each other. Eventually he asked me out.
Date Night which happened to be on April 1st. Imagine my surprise when the cute guy with the green Firebird pulled into my driveway. My bank building date was with the same guy I had been watching wash his car all these months.
I’ve always felt it was destiny and I definitely found my soulmate. We celebrate fifty years of marriage this June.
Wow Susan! That’s quite a story. My Joe also had a green Firebird! Thank you for sharing.