Love Will Conquer
All the lovers that will never meet, the romances that will not blossom, the desperation of passion that will not grow, these are the victims of COVID-19.
It feels obscene to even write that vile word in the same breath as musing about love. But the virus will pass and love will return in all its human power. That is absolute.
Love is touching, smelling, hearing, seeing, feeling. It is a first kiss, the unique yet somehow familiar smell of another human being, the sound of one soft voice that stimulates the other, the touch on the cheek, the magic that two people share as they stare in each other’s eyes.
This love cannot be created in a virtual setting. Possibly something can grow virtually, but it is not love.
Romance happens with a glance or a chance meeting. It happens at a party where strangers meet and seem to hang on each other’s every word; or in a classroom where two people with like interests connect. The seeds of love can be planted in the most unlikely situations, a subway, a supermarket, a children’s concert.
It grows when two people sense a closeness that calls them to see if it can be more. It cannot be done with six-foot distances or between the quarantined.
Love leads to radical, illogical actions and how many people will risk the virus in the name of holding and loving. For those deeply in love, the thought of loss is like death so risking sickness for a loved one is perfectly logical.
How would some of the great romances been effected by COVID-19.
“Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn,” said Rhett Butler to Miss Scarlet. “And even if I did I’m under quarantine.”
“Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet,” said Juliet to Romeo.
Upon which Rome answers, “I would love to be there and to swear my love but I can’t leave the house. I’m stuck in quarantine. Hopefully we can connect in a few months.”
“We’ll always have Paris,” Rick Blaine tells his star-crossed lover, Ilsa, in Casablanca.
“Yes,” she answers. “That’s all we’ll have because we’ll never get together again because of the damn virus.”
Love has been the stuff of writers and poets forever. Check out a few example to understand the power of love and why it will always survive.
“I am nothing special; just 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 in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.”
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks.
“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
“We are asleep until we fall in love!”
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
“He sweeps her hair back from her ears; he swings her above his head. He says she is his émerveillement. He says he will never leave her, not in a million years.”
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
“Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
“She is a mortal danger to all men. She is beautiful without knowing it, and possesses charms that she’s not even aware of. She is like a trap set by nature — a sweet perfumed rose in whose petals Cupid lurks in ambush! Anyone who has seen her smile has known perfection. She instills grace in every common thing and divinity in every careless gesture. Venus in her shell was never so lovely, and Diana in the forest never so graceful as my Lady when she strides through Paris!”
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand.
“Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.”
Hamlet by William Shakespeare.
“She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don’t know what she was — anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.”
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.
“You and I, it’s as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven and sent down to earth together, to see if we know what we were taught.”
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.
“All hopes of eternity and all gain from the past he would have given to have her there, to be wrapped warm with him in one blanket, and sleep, only sleep. It seemed the sleep with the woman in his arms was the only necessity.”
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence.
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depths and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and idea grace.”
Sonnet 43 by William Shakespeare.
Need I say more.