True Love

Some of the prevalent social websites have given many of us the opportunity to reconnect with former classmates of many years ago. Much has been written about the evils of these happenings. As I have learned of the lives of those who marched with me on that graduation dayI have been stung by the number of those whose marriages have crumbled for one reason or another. On the other hand there are those who have been successful enough to grow old together. Some are today enduring life-threatening illnesses and some are quite broken at the loss of a partner with whom they have built a life and had a family.

I could not help but reflect on these things when hearing this message given with the Tabernacle Choir Broadcast recently. How many of us remember reading the quote from The Notebook,

by Nicholas Sparks.

True and Lasting Love February 13, 2011 Broadcast number 4248 Few things are more beautiful than a couple in love. Whether newly married or celebrating a golden anniversary, couples who keep love alive, who endure the ups and downs of life together, deserve our admiration. We may consider them lucky, but they will tell you that it's not luck that keeps them in love. It's choosing to stay in love, all along the way. They have come to know that love is a behavior, a series of actions and choices-not just an elusive feeling that might someday escape them. Some 400 years ago, William Shakespeare expressed this timeless truth: Love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken.1 Tempests and trials come to us all, to every family, every marriage. But true and lasting love is possible. Charles and Elaine were married, and in love, for nearly 60 years. Later in life, when Elaine could not care for herself, Charles devoted himself to her care. He practiced making her favorite recipes until he got them just right. He learned to sew and then altered her clothing to make it easier for her to get dressed. He gave her daily facials with her favorite cream. He took her to swim therapy and researched other ways he could make her more comfortable. He had his own health problems, but his first concern was always the comfort and well-being of his sweetheart.2 These words from a popular novel capture well Charles's devotion: "I am a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough."3 Charles and Elaine, and other couples like them, are proof that love need not be shaken by life's tempests. True love can live forever. 1. Sonnet 116, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, ed. George Long Duyckinck (1869), 954. 2. See Marcia L. Aes, "Dad's Lesson in Love," Ensign, Dec. 2009, 10-12. 3. Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook (1996), 2.