TRUE LOVE

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about love. No, this does not have anything to do with Valentine's Day last month. Rather, I recently saw the movie Amour and read the book Me Before You. Each of these works made me think about life and the lengths to which we are willing to go for the ones we love.

Amour won the Best Foreign Film this year and tells the story of an octogenarian French couple. Their lives are irrevocably altered when the wife suffers a devastating and progressive stroke. The husband assumes the role of caregiver while still somehow maintaining an intense love of his wife that far exceeds anything I have ever felt.  This comment is not meant to disparage my marriage. Rather, it speaks to the depth of this particular husband's devotion.  He is willing to do anything for his wife, and one cannot help but hope for him to succeed. Depending on one's perspective, he does.

Last night I finished reading another incredibly moving work about love despite illness - this time a debilitating spinal cord injury. That book was called Me Before You. The main character Louisa Clark, is a young woman, who has been hired to care for a quadriplegic man named William Traynor. Before Will met Louisa, he was a playboy, a world traveler, a successful business - i.e. someone who lived big! All of that ended when he was hit by a motorcycle and rendered immobile and wholly dependent on others.

Before Louisa met Will, she was a waitress in a small town in the English countryside - Will's hometown. Louisa had never left England, was in an unfulfilling long-term relationship, and lived in a crowded house with her parents, sister, and her sister's illegitimate son.  However, her world view changes dramatically once she accepts a position as Will's caretaker.  In fact, one could draw a line marking Louisa's awakening, and that line was drawn by Will.

I will not give away the endings to these two exceptional works of art, but I will encourage you to see and read them for yourself. After experiencing these stories, you will come away affected. You will have a greater sense of how life and our loved ones are gifts to be treasured. You will think about your life in pre-Amour and pre-Me Before You terms. If we are lucky, the lessons we learn from these works will not be fleeting. I hope these lessons remain for a long while....