ON A VALENTINE SUNSET












“We are most alive when we're in love.”
- John Updike

I am writing this Post when the Sun has almost gone home on this Valentine's Day. No problem… As someone said, somewhere around the world Valentine's Day was ‘yesterday’… and somewhere it will be ‘tomorrow’. So, what is there in a ‘date’, that is, in ‘14th February!

I am writing this Post because, as more and more Valentine's Days see their Sun sets, it piercingly becomes clearer to me, that Love is the most amazing thing in life. Next to our breath, I think, it is Love that keeps us ‘alive’!

Having said that, a thought does weigh on my head, today: “Is that truly so… that is, today – after nearly twenty-six years of our marriage - do I truly feel ‘I am in love’ and do I truly feel ‘I am alive’?

I, also, remember my wedding vow: “I, GERALD, take you, ANIMA, to be my wedded wife. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.”

To feel this freshness and aliveness in marriage has really been a challenge. To remain true to one’s wedding vows… in a world of instant gratification and contracts… yes, it has not been easy. Together in ‘good times’… yes, it has been easy. But, together in ‘bad times’?

“We do not ‘fall’ in love,” say the wise words, “we only 'grow' in love.” It takes many, many Valentine Sunsets to grasp this truth… When the hype and hoopla of a ‘wedding’ fade into a ‘marriage’… and when your loved-one’s presence and companionship make Life worth living all over again… yes, that is when, as Bette Midler concludes in her famous song, the seed becomes the rose. I have played this song – ‘THE ROSE’ - many times before; yes, on Valentine's Days, too… I don’t mind doing it again, even though the Sun has already set on this Valentine's…



GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Internet
Video: YouTube

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