Chapter 1

Romance of Two Sweet Hearts

两个人的浪漫

Once I thought love meant flowers, gifts and sweet kisses. But from this experience, I understand that love is just a thread in the quilt of our life. Love is inside, making life strong and warm.

曾经我认为爱情就是鲜花、礼物和甜蜜的亲吻。可这件事让我明白，爱就像是隐藏在生活这床被子里的线。爱是内在的，它让生活变得更加坚固和温暖。

Love Is Just a Thread

爱只是一根线

Cathyma

Sometimes I really doubt whether there is love between my parents. Every day they are very busy trying to earn money in order to pay the high tuition for my brother and me. They don’t act in the romantic ways that I read in books or I see on TV. In their opinion, “I love you” is too luxurious for them to say. Sending flowers to each other on Valentine’s Day is even more out of the question. Finally my father has a bad temper. When he’s very tired from the hard work, it is easy for him to lose his temper.

One day, my mother was sewing a quilt. I silently sat down beside her and looked at her.

“Mom, I have a question to ask you,” I said after a while.

“What?” she replied, still doing her work.

“Is there love between you and Dad?” I asked her in a very low voice.

My mother stopped her work and raised her head with surprise in her eyes. She didn’t answer immediately. Then she bowed her head and continued to sew the quilt.

I was very worried because I thought I had hurt her. I was in a great embarrassment and I didn’t know what I should do. But at last I heard my mother say the following words:

“Susan,” she said thoughtfully, “Look at this thread. Sometimes it appears, but most of it disappears in the quilt. The thread really makes the quilt strong and durable. If life is a quilt, then love should be a thread. It can hardly be seen anywhere or anytime, but it’s really there. Love is inside.”

I listened carefully but I couldn’t understand her until the next spring. At that time, my father suddenly got sick seriously. My mother had to stay with him in the hospital for a month. When they returned from the hospital, they both looked very pale. It seemed both of them had had a serious illness.

After they were back, every day in the morning and dusk, my mother helped my father walk slowly on the country road. My father had never been so gentle. It seemed they were the most harmonious couple. Along the country road, there were many beautiful flowers, green grass and trees. The sun gently glistened through the leaves. All of these made up the most beautiful picture in the world.

The doctor had said my father would recover in two months. But after two months he still couldn’t walk by himself. All of us were worried about him.

“Dad, how are you feeling now?” I asked him one day.

“Susan, don’t worry about me.” he said gently. “To tell you the truth, I just like walking with your mom. I like this kind of life.” Reading his eyes, I know he loves my mother deeply.

Once I thought love meant flowers, gifts and sweet kisses. But from this experience, I understand that love is just a thread in the quilt of our life. Love is inside, making life strong and warm...

Just Two for Breakfast

两个人的早餐

Joe

When my husband and I celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary at our favorite restaurant, Lenny, the piano player, asked, “How did you do it?”

I knew there was no simple answer, but as the weekend approached, I wondered if one reason might be our ritual of breakfast in bed every Saturday and Sunday.

It all started with the breakfast tray my mother gave us as a wedding gift. It had a glass top and slatted wooden side pockets for the morning paper the kind you used to see in the movies. Mother loved her movies, and although she rarely had breakfast in bed, she held high hopes for her daughter. My adoring bridegroom took the message to heart.

Feeling guilty, I suggested we take turns. Despite grumblings—“hate crumbs in my bed”—Sunday morning found my spouse eagerly awaiting his tray. Soon these weekend breakfasts became such a part of our lives that I never even thought about them. I only knew we treasured this separate, blissful time read, relax, forget the things we should remember.

Sifting through the years, I recalled how our weekends changed, but that we still preserved the ritual. We started our family (as new parents, we slept after breakfast more than we read), but we always found our way back to where we started, just two for breakfast, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

When we had more time, my tray became more festive. First it was fruit slices placed in geometric pattern; then came flowers from our garden, sometimes just one blossom sprouting from a grapefruit half. This arranger of mine had developed a flair for decorating, using everything from amaryllis to the buds of a maple tree. My husband said my cooking inspired him. Mother would have approved. Perhaps it was the Saturday when the big strawberry wore a daisy hat that I began to think, how can I top this? One dark winter night I woke with a vision of a snowman on a tray. That Sunday I scooped a handful of snow and in no time had my man made. With a flourish I put a miniature pinecone on his head.

As I delivered the tray, complete with a nicely frozen snowman, I waited for a reaction. There was none but as I headed down the stairs I heard a whoop of laughter and then, “You’ve won! Yes, sir, you’ve won the prize!”

Men誷 Romantic

男人的浪漫

Dr. Nancy kalish

We too often define “romantic” in women’s terms— sending flowers and cards, saving mementos and putting them in a box or scrapbook, gushing over chick romance movies, or listening to romantic songs all day.

Men may not do these things, but many men do something more romantic than all that: they keep their love in their hearts forever.

My survey of 3000 men and women worldwide who tried reunions with lost loves asked, “How long did it take for you to get over your lost love?” Responses from the men indicated that they took significantly longer to get over their lost loves than the women. Some of the men were not satisfied with the survey choices: the last choice listed was, “Over 10 years.” Only men crossed out all the choices and wrote, “I never got over her!” While no doubt some women never got over their lost loves, either, only men wrote this comment on the survey.

Adolescent boys are “not supposed” to cry over lost loves. But many of my male participants reported that, after their high school girlfriends broke up with them, they cried in private, every night, for months.

My lost love reunion findings about romantic men paralleled results of my survey of adults who never tried lost love reunions. There were significantly more men than women who chose to fill out the survey, and they expressed strong feelings for their first loves, even though they had not contacted these women (and may never do so).

Posts on the Message Board of my web site (Lostlovers.com), are more represented by women than men. But appearances are misleading. Actually, there are more men who are members of my site than women. The men don’t post as often as the women, but they are reading!

Men more often sign up for private phone consultations to talk about their lost loves than women.

But it is a rare men’s magazine that will print a story about love and romance. The editors tell me that they think men are uninterested. Not so! When my research was quoted in Playboy, it generated a lot of responses.

On occasions where romance is expected (such as Valentine’s Day, birthdays or anniversaries), we should all remember to separate emotions from behaviors. Men may not make scrapbooks of mementos of their love experiences, but they are every bit as loving, loyal, and yes, romantic, as women—and sometimes more so!

Why We Love Who We Love

打破砂锅爱到底

Joyce Brothers

Have you ever known a married couple that just didn’t seem as though they should fit together—yet they are both happy in the marriage, and you can’t figure out why?

I know of one couple: He is a burly ex—athlete who, in addition to being a successful salesman, coaches Little League, is active in his Rotary Club and plays golf every Saturday with friends. Meanwhile, his wife is petite, quiet and a complete Homebody. She doesn’t even like to go out to dinner.

What mysterious force drives us into the arms of one person, while pushing us away from another who might appear equally desirable to any unbiased observer?

Of the many factors influencing our idea of the perfect mate, one of the most telling, according to John Money, professor emeritus of medical psychology and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, is what he calls our “love map”—a group of messages encoded in our brains that describes our likes and dislikes. It shows our preferences in hair and eye color, in voice, smell, and body build. It also records the kind of personality that appeals to us, whether it’s the warm and friendly type or the strong, silent type.

In short, we fall for and pursue those people who most clearly fit our love map. And this love map is largely determined in childhood. By age eight, the pattern for our ideal mate has already begun to float around in our brains.

When I lecture, I often ask couples in the audience what drew them to their dates or mates. Answers range from “She’s strong and independent” and “I go for redheads” to “I love his sense of humor” and “That crooked smile, that’s what did it.”

Robert Winch, a longtime sociology professor at Northwestern University, stated in his research that our choice of a marriage partner involves a number of social similarities. But he also maintained that we look for someone with complementary needs. A talker is attracted to someone who likes to listen, or an aggressive personality may seek out a more passive partner.

However, there are instances where people of different social backgrounds end up getting married and being extremely happy. I know of one man, a factory worker from a traditional Irish family in Chicago, who fell in love with an African American Baptist. When they got married, their friends and relatives predicted a quick failure. But 25 years later, the marriage is still strong.

It turns out that the woman was like her mother—in—law—a loving and caring person, the type who rolls up her sleeves and volunteers to work at church or help out people in need. This is the quality that her husband fell for, and it made color and religion and any other social factors irrelevant to him.

Or as George Burns, who was Jewish and married the Irish Catholic Gracie Allen, used to say: his marriage was his favorite gig, even though it was Gracie who got all the laughs. The two of them did share certain social similarities—both grew up in the city, in large but poor families. Yet what really drew them together was evident from the first time they went onstage together. They complemented each other perfectly: he was the straight man, and she delivered the punch lines.

There are certainly such “odd couples” who could scarcely be happier. We all know some drop—dead beautiful person married to an unusually plain wallflower. This is a trade—off some call the equity theory.

When men and women possess a particular asset, such as high intelligence, unusual beauty, a personality that makes others swoon, or a hefty bankroll that has the same effect, some decide to trade their assets for someone else’s strong points. The raging beauty may trade her luster for the power and security that come with big bucks. The not—so—talented fellow from a good family may swap his pedigree for a poor but brilliantly talented mate.

Indeed, almost any combination can survive and thrive. Once, some neighbors of mine stopped by for a friendly social engagement. During the evening， Robert, a man in his 50s, suddenly blurted out, “What would you say if your daughter planned to marry someone who has a ponytail and insisted on doing the cooking?”

“Unless your daughter loves cooking,” I responded, “I’d say she was darn lucky.”

“Exactly,” his wife agreed. “It’s really your problem, Robert—that old macho thing rearing its head again. The point is, they’re in love.”

I tried to reassure Robert, pointing out that the young man their daughter had picked out seemed to be a relaxed, nonjudgmental sort of person—a trait he shared with her own mother.

Is there such a thing as love at first sight? Why not? When people become love—struck, what happens in that instant is the couple probably discover a unique something they have in common. It could be something as mundane as they both were reading the same book or were born in the same town. At the same time they recognize some trait in the other that complements their own personality.

I happen to be one of those who were struck by the magic wand. On that fateful weekend, while I was a sophomore at Cornell University, I had a terrible cold and hesitated to join my family on vacation in the Catskill Mountains. Finally I decided anything would be better than sitting alone in my dormitory room.

That night as I was preparing to go to dinner, my sister rushed up the stairs and said, “When you walk into that dining room, you’re going to meet the man you’ll marry.”

I think I said something like “Buzz off!” But my sister couldn’t have been more right. I knew it from the moment I saw him, and the memory still gives me goose flesh. He was a premed student, also at Cornell, who incidentally also had a bad cold. I fell in love with Milton the instant I met him.

Milt and I were married for 39 years, until his death in 1989. And all that time we experienced a love that Erich Fromm called a “feeling of fusion, of oneness,” even while we both continued to change, grow and fulfill our lives.

A Small Harbor of Reconnection

让爱重温的小港

Karen Scalf Linamen

It was December in California, and we had flown in from Texas to visit our families for the holidays. The days between our arrival and Christmas Eve brimmed with a flurry of last minute activities.

One evening we all hustled into the car to drive to a Christmas party at the home of family friends. We were a little behind schedule because my mom, sister, and I had gotten home late after spending a long day writing checks, signing charge slips, and bringing hysterical grins of joy to the faces of local merchants at a nearby mall.

My mom looked across the front seat at my dad and said, “Whew! What a busy day! I feel like I haven’t seen you in a week!”

My dad grunted, checked the rearview mirror, and changed lanes at something approximating the speed of light.

My mom reached over and twirled a lock of my dad’s hair around her finger. “I know! Let’s look at each other. For just a minute. In the eyes.”

My dad responded this time. He groaned. “Honey, I’m driving.”

“Ten seconds. Five! I haven’t seen you all day. I need to look into your eyes. Are you ready?”

He shook his head. “I can’t look right now. We’ll have a wreck!”

“At the next light.”

At the speed we were traveling, we hit the next red light in no time. And sure enough, holding hands across the front seat, my parents turned and gazed into each other’s eyes. “Hi,” my mom said. “Hi,” my dad said warmly back.

Then the light changed, the gas pedal hit the floor, and the race was on again. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed. Most of all, I was silently moved by what I had witnessed: a small harbor of reconnection in a raging hurricane of activity and distraction.

Roller Romance

滚轴浪漫曲

Stephenie Ray Brown

In the spring of 1980, I had been following one particular guy around school for a month. I just did not have the nerve to go up and talk to him. An embarrassing situation, from that winter, truly prevented me from approaching him.

He had been a starter for the junior varsity basketball team and I was a cheerleader, I had many opportunities to see this gorgeous guy in action. That is, if I wore my glasses. You see, I am as blind as a bat and was too vain to wear them.

As Terry sank a half court shot at the last second, this extremely near—sighted cheerleader, misidentified the hero and began cheering for the wrong guy. As the crowd started chuckling, my face turned crimson as Terry walked by me to get to the locker room. Months later, he only knew me as the dingy cheerleader who could not even get his name right when he hit a great shot!

However, my best friend attended church with Terry. Shirley decided to play matchmaker. She not only invited me to a church—sponsored skating party, but also literally pushed me in his parents’ car to ride to the skating rink. Although the skating rink was 15 miles away, very few words were spoken. As I sank down in that backseat, I just wanted to keep sinking. This had truly been a huge mistake.

After we arrived at the skating rink, things did not get any better. Each couple skate I hoped and prayed that Terry would ask me. He didn’t! After about three couple skates, I decided enough was enough! So I took turns skating with his two best friends. As the last call for a couple skate came over the rink’s loud speakers, Terry finally skated somewhat awkwardly and stood beside the rails with me.

“I guess you wonder why I have not asked you to couple skate?” were his first words to me. Trying ever so hard not to look in those big beautiful brown eyes that made me melt, I answered nonchalantly and dishonestly, “No, not really.”

This guy not only ignored my tart reply, but would also win my heart with the following reply. Casting those beautiful eyes down at his skates, he humbly remarked, “I didn’t ask because I do not skate very well. If you are not afraid that I will make you fall, would you please skate with me?” This time I did look into those eyes and did melt.

As we skated hand in hand to Always and Forever, I knew my life would never be the same. I never knew a guy that actually would admit any of his faults, let alone worry about a girl to boot! I had first been attracted to his beauty on the outside (who wouldn’t notice those beautiful brown eyes), but it would be his beautiful heart that made me realize how truly special he was.

I had actually found my Prince Charming.

Even though he was not riding on a handsome steed (but rented roller skates), he made me feel like Cinderella at the ball as we skated around the rink. I clung tightly to his hand—not because I was afraid of midnight—but to help keep him from falling. When I look at our wedding pictures, my favorite is walking down the aisle as husband and wife. Most couples walk down the aisle with the bride’s hand tucked neatly in the crook of her husband’s arm. Not us! We walked down the aisle, after being pronounced man and wife, just like we had done seven years before at that skating rink—hand—in—hand with the promise of helping keep the other one from falling.

Our children love to hear the story of how their dad did not know how to skate and asked me to hold his hand to help us keep from tumbling. But it had already been too late for their mother. Only after one look into those eyes, she had fallen—fallen in love with Prince Charming.

Words from the Hearts

说出心里话

Ellen Frankenstein

Most people need to hear those “three little words” I love you. Once in a while, they hear them just in time.

I met Connie the day she was admitted to the hospice ward, where I worked as a volunteer. Her husband, Bill, stood nervously nearby as she was transferred from the gurney to the hospital bed. Although Connie was in the final stages of her fight against cancer, she was alert and cheerful. We got her settled in. I finished marking her name on all the hospital supplies she would be using, and then asked if she needed anything.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “would you please show me how to use the TV? I enjoy the soaps so much and I don’t want to get behind on what’s happening.” Connie was a romantic. She loved soap operas, romance novels and movies with a good love story. As we became acquainted, she confided how frustrating it was to be married 32 years to a man who often called her “a silly woman.”

“Oh, I know Bill loves me,” she said, “but he has never been one to say he loves me, or send cards to me.” She sighed and looked out the window at the trees in the courtyard. “I’d give anything if he’d say ‘I love you,’ but it’s just not in his nature.”

Bill visited Connie every day. In the beginning, he sat next to the bed while she watched the soaps. Later, when she began sleeping more, he paced up and down the hallway outside her room. Soon, when she no longer watched television and had fewer waking moments, I began spending more of my volunteer time with Bill.

He talked about having worked as a carpenter and how he liked to go fishing. He and Connie had no children, but they’d been enjoying retirement by traveling, until Connie got sick. Bill could not express his feelings about the fact that his wife was dying.

One day, over coffee in the cafeteria, I got him on the subject of women and how we need romance in our lives; how we love to get sentimental cards and love letters.

“Do you tell Connie you love her?” I asked (knowing his answer), and he looked at me as if I was crazy.

“I don’t have to,” he said. “She knows I do!”

“I’m sure she knows,” I said, reaching over and touching his hands rough, carpenter’s hands that were gripping the cup as if it were the only thing he had to hang onto “but she needs to hear it, Bill. She needs to hear what she has meant to you all these years. Please think about it.”

We walked back to Connie’s room. Bill disappeared inside, and I left to visit another patient. Later, I saw Bill sitting by the bed. He was holding Connie’s hand as she slept. The date was February 12.

Two days later, I walked down the hospice ward at noon. There stood Bill, leaning up against the wall in the hallway, staring at the floor. I already knew from the head nurse that Connie had died at 11 a.m.

When Bill saw me, he allowed himself to come into my arms for a long time. His face was wet with tears and he was trembling. Finally, he leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath.

“I have to say something,” he said. “I have to say how good I feel about telling her.” He stopped to blow his nose. “I thought a lot about what you said, and this morning I told her how much I loved her... and loved being married to her. You should see her smile!”

I went into the room to say my own goodbye to Connie. There, on the bedside table, was a large Valentine card from Bill. You know, the sentimental kind that says, “To my wonderful wife... I love you.”

True Love

真 爱

Julie Parker

An ancient Hebraic text says: “love is as strong as death”. It seems that not everyone experiences this kind of strong love. The increasing poverty, crime and war tells us that the world is in indispensable need of true love. But what is true love?

Love is something we all need. But how do we know when we experience it?

True love is best seen as the devotion and action, not an emotion. Love is not exclusively based how we feel. Certainly our emotions are involved. But they cannot be our only criteria for love. True love is when you care enough about another person that you will lay down your life for them. When this happens, then love truly is as strong as death.

How many of you have a mother, or father, husband or wife, son or daughter or friend who would sacrifice his or her own life on yours? Those of you who truly love your spells but unchildren, would unselfishly lay your life on the line to save them from death? Many people in an emergency room with their loved ones and prayed “please, God, take me instead of them”.

Find true love and be a true lover as well. May you find a love which is not only strong as death, but to leave to a truly for feeling life.