For as long as I can remember, it seemed to me that people in a true love relationship were happy people. Indeed, when in my late teens, I observed that something happened to my own friends-male and-female--when they loved someone. Love is the costliest of emotions, yet just about everyone is ready, if not eager, to experience it, knowing that it must necessarily end in pain, one way or another, i.e., through its own demise or through the death of one or the other participants.
I don't remember ever having seen a bride with the look of misery on her face, though I suspect there have been a few. Rarely is a woman more beautiful, more radiant than she is on her wedding day.
Love manifests itself in many ways. Watch a mother as she adores her child. Observe a little child who has a hurt finger, a disappointment, the smallest failure, as he runs to his mother for comfort and support, secure in the knowledge that she will welcome him with loving arms. One day, I watched a father gently reprimand his precocious four-year-old daughter. Knowing that he loved her in spite of his promise to punish her if she didn't behave, she put her arms around him and said, "I'm still your princess, Daddy." Naturally, the big six-foot man melted. For a minute, I was sure he would cry as he held the child in his arms.
If you've ever watched Bob and Mike Bryan play tennis as a doubles team, you know what true rapport and sensitivity to another person can accomplish. Twins, who are indistinguishable, they live together and work together, and their affection for each other is almost like a sign painted on them.
I've been happily married for thirty years, and I have one step-son who I raised and who I love as if I had given birth to him. Who could love a man and not love his child...especially one whose birth mother died when he was little and who looks to you for maternal guidance and nurturing? My son's maternal aunts and cousins treat me as if I were a beloved blood relative. So I know that love begets love and that it has the power to draw people the way flint draws lead. Why wouldn't I believe in love?
I cannot believe that Edward the Eighth, King of England, abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee, for any reason than that he deeply loved her. Because the English laws (or customs) forbade his marrying her, he chose her rather than his kingdom. That is not something that a man would do casually. As king of the world's greatest empire (as it was at the time), he outranked every other sovereign in the world.
Harlequin Enterprises (publishers) and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, TN have a joint project, for which Sandra Kitt and I have written romance novels* in which we mention St. Jude's work The purpose is to draw to the attention of our readers the opportunities for children ill with cancer, sickle cell anemia, HIVAIDS and other life-threatening diseases to get the best care even if they cannot afford to pay. Before starting my novel, I was invited to St. Jude's to observe the work, the program, the facilities and aspect of the care given the children. In my capacity as head of research in fertility and family planning at United Nations, I visited hospitals (usually incidentally) in countries from Hong Kong and Thailand to Ethiopia. To say that I was impressed with the work at St. June was an understatement. What impressed me most was the love not only of the medical personnel but also of the non-medical personnel for those children they serve. One might have thought that the patients were the biological children of the staff. It was amazing.
If I didn't believe in love, I could not write romance novels (Note that I also write mainstream, women's fiction novels). Those novels come entirely out of my imagination. And since I always develop a strong love relationship between my female and male leads, one that I, too, can enjoy reading about a couple of years later, I have to believe in it. I love beauty and happy endings, and you'll find that in my romances.
Finally, In discussing love and why I believe in it, I cannot overlook the message of the Easter season. God is love, and Jesus confirmed that fact.
Gwynne Forster
Author of Getting Some Of Her Own (Kensington/Dafina Books) Mainstream fiction.
*Gwynne Forster, What Matters Most (October 2008)
Sandra Kitt., For All We Know (September 2008)
About Gwynne Forster:
Fiction writing is Gwynne Forster’s second career. She holds bachelors and masters degrees in sociology, a master’s degree in economics/demography and has additional graduate credits in journalism. As a demographer, she is widely published. She is formerly chief of (non-medical) research in fertility and family planning in the Population Division of the United Nations in New York and served for four years as chairperson of the International Programme Committee of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (London, England). These positions took her on official business to sixty-three developed and developing countries. Gwynne sings on her church choir, loves to entertain, and is a museum hopper, gourmet cook and avid gardener. She enjoys classical music, opera, jazz and blues with her husband with whom she lives in New York City.
