"If one were given five minutes warning before sudden death, five minutes to say what it had all meant to us, every telephone booth would be occupied by people trying to call up other people to stammer that they loved them."
- Christopher Morley

"Real love begins where nothing is expected in return."
- Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry

Love Notes

There's a moment in the Disney classic, Cinderella, when the ragamuffin heroine lays claim to her wayward glass slipper and Prince Charming adoringly sweeps her into his arms and waltzes her away. It's a scene that draws longing sighs from every woman who watches it.

Why? Romance. That's what it's all about.

I've often wondered how that intangible sense of true love and devotion makes the leap from celluoid to reality. I know it happens. I've been around couples who have been married for decades and still glow when they sit side by side, hands lovingly intertwined.

However as the child of divorce, and a divorcee myself, I also know that the course of true love never runs smooth. In fact, Rocky Road might better entitle the majority of marriages I know.

But, last week a friend of mine told me a little secret. A tale of love that brought tears to my eyes and I must admit, a little envy to my heart.

Her story wasn't about the latest piece of jewelry that her husband gave her, or the flowers that he sent. For my friend's husband passed away two years ago, just short of their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

So now at the age of seventy, she is alone. But, thanks to her loving spouse, not always lonely.

For tucked away in drawers and cabinets throughout my friend's home are love notes scripted by her husband. Terms of endearments that he planted as romantic surprises for her during the course of their marriage.

Over the years, she saved his sweet inscriptions, often leaving them in their original hiding places. His loving sentiments tenderly playing anew with each re-discovery.

Now that he is gone, her life is a daily challenge of loving memories and sad yearning for this romantic man with whom she shared almost a half a century of life.

But in her indomitable way, my friend is continuing on with determination and enthusiasm. She is healthy and strong and lives each day with an interest in the world around her. She is surrounded by family and friends who support her and a community
where she is acknowledged and respected. But most of all, she continues on with the inner knowledge that she is loved. Truly and totally.

And any time she thinks otherwise, all she has to do is open a kitchen drawer or look in her bedroom nightstand for a little reminder.

But somehow I think she knows, even before she opens that drawer.

Christina Abt