True love
Mar 10th, 2008 by spaceagesage
True love in most people’s mind is nothing like the real thing. Take any romantic movies with the greatest love stories you can think of and they cannot compare to real, true love. Not even Shakespeare came close.
How do I know?
My husband and I have seen it with our own eyes. And just remembering the couple who lived it makes our hearts melt into tenderness, love, and warm smiles.
They met in their youth when both ended up at the same dance. He noticed her from across the room being bothered unmercifully by another young man. The rude man had decided to force his ill-mannered company one her, and she was trying to be polite. Her future husband didn’t take kindly to such uncivil behavior and, in the end, blasted the other young man all the way across the ballroom floor and beyond with one blow of his fist, leaving the inconsiderate fellow slumped unconscious against the wall.
Talk about a hero entering the scene to save the day! They fell in love and married.
When we met them in the early 90s, they were seventy-somethings. They lived in a tiny 16×8 trailer on a small plot of land away from the business and busyness of the world. Her legs weren’t as good as they used to be, so the smallness of their home allowed her to move without the hindrance of a cane or walker — she just used the nearby walls or table to steady herself. I didn’t realize it until later that this was her husband’s way of giving her dignity and honor. The size of the place still gave her a great sense of control and self-reliance since it was easy to clean and cook in as well. Others probably looked at him as being less than a proper provider for “making them live in such a small place with all his money,” but it was the size of their hearts and their love for one another that made their home better than any other.
Then she became very ill and ended up in the hospital with a slim chance of recovery. My husband remembers the love in this older man’s eyes when he said, “If she dies, I don’t want to live either.”
He didn’t say it because he would be lonely when she was gone. This couple’s love had been forged in the ruggedness of a generation bred to toughness and courage, so such fear never entered his mind.
He didn’t say it because he felt old and feeble. This man could still out think and out work men half his age, so he still had a robust life to live.
He didn’t say it out of self pity or with any kind of selfishness. This man knew more about selflessness than a hundred of his peers, so he held no “woe is me” attitude.
When a couple lives for decades mutually sharing the load of “submitting one to another” as the Bible says with hearts of forgiveness and sacrifice, they become so enamored with one another’s well-being, so in love, and so willing to cherish the other that the link between them weaves into an unbreakable bond.
Genesis 2:24 ” … man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Imagine two tree trunks growing side by side and touching so that they become almost like one tree, each supporting the other at all times. If one of the trees dies and falls, the whole support structure for the other one fails, leaving a gaping wound. For this couple, a lifetime of facing world wars, the Depression, the rough and tough West, and dozens of life and death moments in the face of storms, animal attacks, and family health problems left them with a gentle, tender strength whose roots fed at the well of love.
Once, when his wife was still recovering, a legalistic and attendance-counting church leader took the man to task for not bringing her to church services. The husband, far older and wiser than this religious fool, explained the situation. The church leader told him that he should get himself to services at least. The older man took out his voice of thunder and made it clear that if it was such a big deal, “You can bring the church to us!”
Such a relationship is rare and wonderful. The looks they would give one another, the talks they had, the little courtesies they showed one another radiated out of their lives like the warmth of a fire. Their example forever changed my husband’s and my life. Who could not want such a love?
Fortunately, the doctors in the hospital realized her teeth were poisoning her and once removed, her health bounced right back. The last time we saw them before moving away, they were smiling and waving goodbye from their amazing little home filled with the truest love I have ever known.
What a great story.
I will have my husband read this post.
Thanks for sharing.