24 comments/ 23987 views/ 30 favorites The Temple Called Love By: PostScriptor by PostScriptor, copyright 2011, all rights reserved "Grandma," I heard my young granddaughter calling. "Yes, dear. I'm here in the family room," I replied. I heard the sound of feet rushing down the stairs and towards my temporary refuge from the hustle and bustle of life, followed by Sarah arriving breathlessly in the room, as only a 10-year-old can. As she plopped herself down on the old brown overstuffed couch next to me, I looked at her, with her golden blond hair, and her sky-blue eyes, and was reminded so very much of my mother, after whom Sarah was named. "Sarah, you look so much like the photos of my mother when she was young!" I said by way of explanation to her. Her eyes rolled around their sockets, and she rocked her head, making fun of me and laughing. "Grandma, you tell me that ALL the time." I had to laugh a little too. She was right about that, I did say it quite often. "Just because I say it often doesn't mean it is any less true," I insisted, smiling, "So there!" It was obvious that Sarah was not just 'passing through' on her way out to play, so I set aside the book I was reading, and got up, walked across the room to the television and turned it off. I hadn't really been watching; it was just President Kennedy giving a speech at some university or another. The television was nothing more than noise in the background to me when I was deeply engrossed in a book, although the whole concept of seeing someone speaking thousands of miles away, in color, in our own living room was still amazing to these old eyes. When I sat back down again, Sarah tucked herself under my arm, snuggling up to me. I welcomed her affections, and knew I should take full advantage of them now, because in a year or two she probably would regard herself as 'too grown up' to be caught being overtly loving towards her Grandmother. "Tell me the story," she demanded. "Heavens, child, haven't you heard it enough times?" She shook her head, now with a completely serious look on her face. I smiled down at her, and truthfully, I couldn't blame her for wanting to hear 'the story' again. It was one of my most treasured memories of my life as well. As I closed my eyes, my mind was going back in time, back to the year 1910, back to the farm where my parents, my three younger brothers and I lived. ******* I could almost smell the pungent, earthy smell that rose from the ground after a rain shower on the freshly turned fields that my father still plowed with his team of Belgian horses. The smells of my mother baking bread for the family. See the pristine blue skies above vast fields of golden ripe wheat, dotted here and there with white clouds. As I recall it turned out to be a day shortly before my sixteenth birthday and only days before my parent's eighteenth wedding anniversary. That period in a young woman's life is so fragile and so fleeting. A time when she is no longer a child, but not completely a woman. She develops physically, and is beginning to feel the needs of adulthood, yet, at least in my case, is still happiest and most comfortable in the warm bosom of her family where she is protected and cared for. She looks out at the world, and is both attracted and repelled by what she sees. For me, my choice in books illustrated the point. I had begun reading books like "Jane Eyre", "Wuthering Heights", and "Ivanhoe", but I had also just finished "The Emerald City of Oz", which was the sixth book in the Oz series by Mr. Frank Baum. My fantasy life was divided between Dorothy and the creatures of Oz, and increasingly with thoughts of dark, romantic and mysterious men like Heathcliff, or Mr. Darcy. In other words, thoughts of romance and love, and of a future that in an abstract way involved men, were becoming central to my imagination. That Saturday morning, I was looking for my mother, but as I roamed from room to room, she wasn't there. In the front room, I found my brother, Daniel, who was thirteen at the time, looking out the window at the road that crossed in front of our farm. "Have you seen mother?" I asked, almost sure that I wouldn't get any useful information from him. My brother, when he was at home at all, and not out with his friends from the adjoining farms, almost always had his nose in a 'Tom Swift' boy's novel or a Zane Gray western. I think it was 'Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat' that I'd seen him reading most recently. "Nope," he answered succinctly, "but Doc Haldermann just drove by in his new automobile. It's a Ford." He made a dismissive sound. My brother was very opinionated about motor cars, and thought that Buicks were vastly superior to Fords. After confirming to myself that mother wasn't hiding somewhere in the house, I went out to the barn. It only took a minute to conclude that she wasn't there either. There was really only one other place that she would possibly be. Our farm was 160 acres, made up of two adjacent 80 acre parcels, one parcel from each of my grandparents. It was their wedding gifts to my mother and father. Of the acreage, 120 acres were flat and tillable; there was about twenty acres of timber that could be harvested for lumber, and the remaining twenty acres had large rock outcroppings and a pond. That was the most beautiful part of our farm because it was left wild. It was slightly higher than the surrounding land, and was isolated enough that you could feel like you were completely alone there. As I expected, my mother was sitting on top of one of the rocks that stood above the pond, something she would do when she wanted to be alone to think. I wasn't sure if I ought to interrupt her reverie, so I hung back a little, in the shade of the green canopy of the trees that sheltered the path up to the rock bench. "Come on up, Lizzie," my mother said, without even turning around. "Come and sit with me." I guess I hadn't walked as quietly as I thought! Without further ado, I came up the remaining steps, and sat beside my mother on the rock, and the two of us sat there, silent, appreciating the warmth and beauty of the mid-morning view. We could look down at the pond and see where bugs landing on the water attracted the hungry attention of fish in the pond, followed by the slight 'plop' sound as the fish rose from below to feast, leaving nothing more than an ever expanding circular pattern on the smooth surface of the water. After a time, I looked at my mother, who even in her mid-thirties remained a comely woman. ******* I returned to the present, long enough to look at my granddaughter again, "like you, my Sarah, with golden hair and the bluest of blue eyes." ******* Mother seemed to me to have a sadness, a weight on her, when she looked back at me. But, she put that aside, and smiled at me. "Well, Lizzie, I know you didn't come all the way out here just to sit and look at the pond with me," she smiled again, and put her arm around my shoulder, bringing me closer to her. "Do we need to have a mother/daughter conversation today?" I just nodded my head in the affirmative. But I didn't really know how to bring the subject up so I just started. "Mother, I've been wondering about... I've been reading these books on, well, you know — love and romance, and people falling in love and getting married. Anyway, I wanted to know what you thought about it. And it made me wonder how you and father fell in love and got married." My mother sighed and took her time before she replied. "It's funny that you should ask, Lizzie, because I was mulling over questions of my own on that subject before you came up to me." The frown that had been part of her general demeanor when I first arrived, briefly reappeared on her face. "Perhaps I should tell you about your father and I, first, before I share what I perceive to be the truth about romance and love," she started. "Because our parents lived on farms that abutted one another, your father and I have known of each other as long as we've lived. Since I'm five years younger than David — your father — most of the time when we were growing up, we had little to do with each other. He spent his time with the boys his age, while I spent my time with other young girls. But, I have a secret to tell you: even when I was small, I was smitten by David. It was so obvious to my sisters, that they teased me unmercifully about it. "Nevertheless, I thought that he was very handsome, and he was well-formed, tall with broad shoulders. As he grew, I watched the muscles in his arms become like a mans. When he started to grow a sparse beard, the girls his own age thought it quite amusing. I wasn't amused. I thought it was very manly. "I always convinced myself that he treated me in a special way, although I understand now that he was just being kind and polite to me, as he was towards all of the smaller children. I would dress for church in a way that I imagined would meet David's approval, that would catch his eye. "When I overheard some older girls saying that men were attracted by women who were shy and demure, for awhile I would lower my eyes and not say a word when he was close by," Mother laughed at that. "I was about nine-years-old at the time. It was completely silly of me, because the reality was, David was hardly aware that I existed. I was just another of the children in the neighborhood, not one of his contemporaries. "David had been a quiet boy, and he became a quiet man. Each year as I grew older I fretted day-in-and-day-out that one day he would marry some other girl from the town, and I would be alone. In my fantasies, I would bravely remain a spinster the rest of my life, spurning suitors, breaking the hearts of men who wanted me, but couldn't have me. But their efforts would be for naught, for David possessed my heart. Mother looked very serious now, and paused again before she spoke. "What really happened was different than anything I would have imagined. "For whatever reason, David wasn't interested in the young women who had populated his circle of friends. Perhaps because they had all known each other for so long, he perceived their flaws and was too familiar with them to find them attractive. For some time it was thought around the township that David at twenty-one would never marry; that he would remain on the farm, working with his father and the hired help, but without a wife or family." Then a grimace of pain passed over Mother's visage. "One day, when I was a little older than you are now, on a Sunday afternoon after church, my parents told me to stay in my church clothes because I would not be playing that day. I had no idea what was happening, and no one explained it to me then. I stayed in the house until I was called from my room, and my mother brought me into the parlor. When I entered the room, David, still dressed in his Sunday best, and his parents were already seated, and mother was about to serve tea. "Our parents were already engaged in a discussion, that mystified me for a time. There was talk of each family contributing land, of constructing houses and barns, and of acquiring horses. "David's father was praising his abilities as a farmer — he understood the crops, he was strong and able to plow and till, to plant and harvest. My parents made me blush as they spoke of my skills in cooking, sewing, baking, cleaning and washing. I was hard working, they said. They almost brought me to tears when they described my hips as wide and ready for bearing children. It was as if they were describing a brood mare or a prize cow! "It suddenly dawned on me, that this discussion was about David and I marrying! "I was quite shocked, and looked at David, who hadn't said a word. I was trying to keep from crying. David said nothing to me, but was looking at me as I was being 'sold' by my parents to be a farmers wife. When they had talked about it enough, David's father looked at him and asked, 'David, is Sarah an acceptable bride?' to which David, speaking for the first time, said, 'Yes, father.' Then my father looked at me and asked, 'Sarah, do you have any objections to marrying David?', to which I said, 'No.' And that was that. Two weeks later, on the Sunday after church service, David and I were wed." There was another extended pause, as my mother and I sat together that day. "Now I don't want you thinking that what I'm saying is anything against your father. He is, and has always been, a good, solid, moral man. He has always been there to protect and defend us; he has been a good provider and we have never suffered want. We are lucky to have him as the head of our household. He has been a good, kind husband to me. "But we are farmers, and I guess that is another way of saying, we are practical and realistic people. Maybe things are different for rich folk, or members of the aristocracy, as they always are in those novels you've been reading. "I read all of the books that you like so much when I was your age, and filled my head with notions of romantic love and passion. I expected to have a white knight come, sweep me off my feet and carry me away. I would be awakened with the kiss of true love by my handsome prince, who would put me on a pedestal and love me from afar with a pure heart. "In the real world, all of those romantic notions are just that: notions, dreams, the wishes of silly young girls. In the real world, they are so much falderal, ideas of some ideal 'love' that, if you believe in them, will only serve to confuse and disappoint you through your life." In the pause that followed, the silence was deafening. "You know that tomorrow, your father and I will have been married for eighteen years," she quietly said. I snuck a peek at my mother after she'd said her piece, only to see tears rolling down the side of her face. With the back of her hand, she brushed them away, still looking out at the pond below us. "Well, Lizzie," she said as she began to stand, "I've got to get back to work. Can't spend all day thinking on things we can't do anything about." She took my hand, and we walked back down the path and back to the house. ******* At this point, as I always did when telling 'the story', I stopped and looked at Sarah. "That's probably enough for today, isn't it?" I asked. Sarah shook her head violently back and forth. "No, you need to tell it all the way to the end," she firmly declared, knowing that I didn't really intend to stop. I nodded my agreement. "Alright, since you insist," I replied. ******* My mother had given me a great deal to think about. I was actually shocked and upset. My parents, I realized, didn't have the kind of perfect relationship that I always taken for granted. I wondered if there was something — one of those 'grown-up' things — wrong, that I was just becoming old enough to understand. But I couldn't quite see it. So I decided to speak to my father as well. On Saturday afternoons, instead of working in the fields, my father worked making repairs on the house or equipment, and on preparations for the following week. We all gathered for lunch that Saturday, and when he returned to the barn, I followed him. He had gone into the tack room, where he was repairing some piece of leather harness or another. But when he saw me enter, he set it aside. "You're joining me in the barn? To what do I owe this singular honor," he asked, teasing me as he was wont to do. He was a fine figure of a man, as my mother described him — tall, with wide shoulders, but lean of body. He had arms that were muscled like a blacksmith's, and a well trimmed beard. In that, he was a little behind the times, as beards had been going out of style for several years, but my father was no follower of fashion. His overalls were held up by their straps over an off-white long-sleeved shirt made of muslin. He was sitting at his workbench, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. And though he teased me as he greeted me, his piercing eyes were telling me he wasn't fooled, that he knew that I had come on a mission. He waited for me to speak. "Father, I know that this may seem like a strange question to pose to you, but I was wondering if you ever thought about love and romance and those sorts of things?" He smiled at me. "Love and romance?" he ran his fingers back through his hair, "You're doing some pretty serious thinking. Is there something I should know about? Or maybe, I should ask, someone I should know about?" "Oh, Pa. No, there isn't anyone specific. I'm too young to be thinking like that, anyway!" He laughed out loud. "Lizzie, darling — your ma was only a little older than you when we were married. I grant you that was awhile ago, and it was a different time. It will be eighteen years ago, tomorrow, that your ma and I were wed." "I know," I told him, very seriously, "but that was a long time ago, and things are changing now. At school, one of the teachers said that today women aren't getting married as young anymore, sometimes not until they are even twenty-years-old!" My father nodded sagely, no doubt smiling to himself when I said that eighteen years was a long time. "Perhaps you ought to talk to your mother about 'romance', because that is a concept which is more familiar to women than men. I think much of a woman's notions of 'romance' come from reading books and listening to other women talk about it. "For men, 'romance' seems to be less important. I'm not sure we understand it much." He seemed to expect that this might be a long discussion, so Father stood up from his wooden seat at the workbench, and cleared off an area on one of the tack boxes. He threw a clean horse blanket atop the box and sat down, tapping his hand on the space next to him, indicating that I ought to sit there with him. As I sat down next to him, it was if my senses had suddenly become sharper than ever before. I remember the warmth of the day, the sun filtering into the barn through the spaces between the boards, the motes of dust that could be seen where the beams of light came through, and the flies, flying silently in circles in the still afternoon air. I waited expectantly, looking up at Father's profile that day, while he, that man of few words, contemplated how to answer my question. "Lizzie," he began, "I have at times pondered about 'love'." He smiled and then looked in my direction. "A man has plenty of time to think while he is working the fields, when his attention isn't completely taken up by the task at hand. "I've often wondered if we even think of 'love' correctly. The Greeks had four words for love — Eros, their term for 'physical love', Philia — what they called 'brotherly' or 'friend-like' love, Agape — the word for 'divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, thoughtful love', and 'Storge' which was more like 'affection' between family members. That, you probably know, as Preacher sometimes speaks of this, when he is discussing love at church. I only bring these up to point out that a lot of people, for a long time, have understood that 'love' is a complex matter. "But I think even four words is short-changing the concept of love. "Love doesn't seem to me to be a simple, single emotion. You can say that someone is 'happy' or 'sad', or 'angry' and those are rather short-lived expressions of a single feeling. And it doesn't take a person hardly any time to go from one of those states to another. Lord knows that folks can be 'happy' one minute, and some little thing happens, and they can be 'angry' the next. Just think about your brothers when they come in from playing baseball, and find out that we are having spinach with dinner!" Father rolled his eyes as he mentioned that. I had to laugh — the boys weren't so much 'angry' as 'horrified' by Mother's spinach. The Temple Called Love Father continued, "I've always thought of 'love' as being sort of like a house — or better, think of it like that Greek temple, oh you know..." "The Parthenon?" I piped in. "Yes, that's it, the Parthenon. So you have this big Temple that we'll call 'love', which is unified under a heavy roof. But to keep the roof up and solid, you need all of those columns that go around the entire outside of the temple. And in the kind of love that a marriage should be, those columns are made up of attitudes, feelings, values, of responsibilities, of mutual obligations to each other, respect for each other — a lot of different things. "And understand something: the Temple of Love isn't built quickly or easily, and what it's made of changes over time." I'm sure that I looked confused at what Father had just said. So he tried to clarify himself. "Lizzie, when a couple first comes together, 'falls in love', and gets married, the Temple that they build isn't very stable. But it does have some strong columns to hold the roof up. One of the first and strongest is physical love. Now you're old enough, I guess, that your ma has talked to you about what 'physical love' is?" I nodded in affirmation. Mother had told me about physical love, although at the time it wasn't a very attractive notion to me. It seemed to me to be too much like what I'd seen when the bulls were with the cows, or when the stallion serviced a mare. No thankee! "OK," Pa continued, "Maybe we could even call that column 'lust', and let me tell you, among young people, that is a big, important part of 'love'. But usually there are already other columns in place as well, such as 'friendship' — usually two youngsters won't get married if they truly can't abide one another. "Another column early on is 'family'. You may be together with your spouse, but especially when you're young, the families try to help out and give you support. That's how we got the farm, for example, from our families. And that support helps glue two people together. Without it, a couple can drift apart fairly easily. "But there are also columns like 'pride', that are there to hold the roof in place. I was proud that your ma was my wife, and she was proud that I was her husband. "So there are a lot of columns that support the 'love' right from the start. But without enough supports, or if the supports that are there aren't strong enough, then the roof that holds the whole structure together can fall apart. That's what happens when people 'fall out' of love, and because they haven't made the effort and spent the time to establish enough support columns yet. That seems to me to be why younger people, who haven't been together for long, are more inclined to split apart. "As I said, though, over time, the columns continue to change and evolve. Some of the supports that were the mainstays of love early on, like physical love, are still strong, but even if they get weaker over time, it doesn't cause the structure to collapse, because other columns have grown that pick up the slack. Things like 'trust', 'respect' and 'loyalty' can't be there at first, because it takes time for them develop, to prove themselves. "And as time goes on, certain feelings and values can actually grow, things like 'friendship' and 'companionship'. In a healthy love relationship, they continue to grow until one of the partners passes. "Mutual obligations and responsibilities are like that too. Even early on two people know that they are responsible for each other — that's what the 'in sickness and health' and the 'for richer or poorer' means in the wedding vows. Another example is that right from the start, a man has an obligation, and is responsible, for protecting his wife and his family. And in a healthy love relationship, there are more obligations and responsibilities that develop over time. But you know what, Lizzie?" I shrugged my shoulders not knowing what he was going to tell me. "Even though there are more columns in our Temple, and, yes, they become more complicated, they tie two people together even more over time. "The obligations and responsibilities, the attitudes, the values, the feelings. They become easier, because you grow to understand that when you support that roof that covers the person you love, you are not just covering and protecting them, you are covering yourself as well." To tell you that I was surprised by what my Pa had just said would be an understatement. I couldn't remember him ever saying that much at one time, for one thing. But even more amazing was how much he seemed to have thought about the nature of love. It just proved to me that you could never know what an adult was thinking about. It was amazing to realize how smart my Father was. And as I got older, he was getting more so! ******* "That was a joke, Sarah!" I explained. "I don't know why," she sniffed. "You will one day," I said, trying to keep from laughing out loud. *** As he finished, Pa stood up and turned to me. "Ok, Lizzie, enough of that for today. Got things to do! These harnesses won't fix themselves." he said, but he didn't sound upset, he seemed happy to have answered my question. As I was leaving the tack room, I put my hand on the doorframe and half-turned, facing back into the room. "Pa?" I asked. "Yes, Lizzie?" "Do you love ma the way you were telling me?" Pa's face darkened, I wasn't sure if it was from anger or some other deep emotion or just a passing cloud that blocked the light. "Of course I do, how can you even ask?" he demanded, upset in a way that I had never seen him before. " 'Cause I'm not sure she knows," I replied, maybe sounding a little sad. For a moment, Pa's eyes went empty, like he'd been hit on the head with a two-by-four. He was silent behind me as I walked out of the barn and back to the house. The following day was Sunday, but on the farm life still started early regardless. No 'sleeping in' or 'taking it easy'. Cows still had to be milked; eggs collected, animals fed, watered, and put out to pasture. By seven-o'clock that Sunday morning, all of us kids had finished our chores, both inside and outside, cleaned-up, and put on our Sunday clothes. Pa was just a little behind us, because he still did the bulk of the more difficult work with the animals. I could find and collect the eggs in the chicken coop, but when heavy lifting was required, like tossing bales of hay out for the horses and cattle, that was still Father's job. As I said, though, Pa was only a little later than we were to the breakfast table. On the farm, breakfast was always an important, maybe the most important, meal of the day. It tended to be heavy foods, and lots of it: smoky, thick bacon; fresh eggs, toasted home-made bread, sometimes gravy and biscuits, as well as milk for us kids and coffee for Pa. And Mother was just as busy as the rest of us in the morning doing all of that cooking. Breakfast that morning seemed strained. Pa was sitting quietly at the table, which he almost always was, and seemed to be in a thoughtful mood. Mother seemed wistful, although when the boys or I would ask for something to be passed or the like, she would smile and try to look happy, but afterwards she would retreat into the sadness that had encompassed her of late. Before eight A.M., the food was eaten, the kitchen was clean, and we were in the buggy headed for church in town. At nine A.M., or thereabouts, church service started, and being Baptists, we would be there the rest of the morning, until lunchtime. Of course, back then Sunday church was more than just a church service. It was a time to see and greet your neighbors, and often, after the service was over, there would be various social events. In a rural community like ours, everyone came to Sunday morning service, to hear the Word of God, and to participate in the community. The church itself was a modest affair, built of wooden lap construction, with a steeple and a bell to tell us when the service was to begin. It was painted with white-wash, and the trim was a dark blue, as I recall. It was like a thousand other churches, plain and unpretentious. If you wanted to have some level of comfort in the pews, you brought your own cushions to sit on. The clear-varnished pews were not known for being easy on the hind-quarters. They were, I was told later, intentionally uncomfortable, to keep people awake during services. Actually, the Sunday service went fairly quickly that day. We sang the hymns, and said our prayers. The collection plate was passed by the deacons, and communion was served for those who had been 'born-again'. "Do this in remembrance of me." Then we settled back for the sermon, which was often an extended affair. The Reverend Dr. James McGinley, being a knowledgeable and eloquent man, understood that God had meant for him to share those talents with us. At length. I don't remember being surprised at church very often when I was young. That morning was one of the few occasions when I was completely taken aback. For when the time came for the sermon, Dr. McGinley looked down at the congregation, and asked my father to come up to the pulpit. "Brothers and Sisters," he said, "This morning Brother David asked me if I could let him say a few words to the congregation before I give my sermon. Brother David?" Then he stepped back and sat in his chair, and Pa stood up behind the pulpit. "Thank you, Reverend McGinley, I appreciate your giving me a couple of minutes to say my piece," he said, looking out at our friends and neighbors sitting in the pews. "Now I know that you all are hoping that I will keep my words short," Pa said, with a twinkle in his eye, "because...Well, we all know Reverend McGinley, and we could all end up missing lunch if I go too long!" Pa's witticism brought a laugh to the congregation — even Dr. McGinley was laughing. He lifted his hands from his lap, and with a huge smile on his face said, "Guilty as charged!" Pa turned his head to face Dr. McGinley. "I hope that extra dollar that I put in the plate this morning will help make up for my funnin' with you. I've always found your sermons brief and to the point, myself." Everyone had another good laugh, but now, having calmed himself, Pa seemed ready to get serious. "You all know me and my family. I'm a simple farmer, and I'm not much of a hand at public speaking. But this morning, I have something that needs to be said." The whole church was quiet, while my Father, this plain man of the soil began to speak. "Today is my eighteenth wedding anniversary. Eighteen years ago, in this very church, I married my wife, Sarah. Many of you, if you are old enough, were here for the wedding. What most of you don't know, is that the decision for Sarah and I to wed was made only two weeks before the ceremony, at her parents house. "I didn't have any idea what was going on that Sunday afternoon. My parents told me to stay in my Sunday clothes because we were going to visit the neighbors that afternoon. That didn't really make any sense to me. I can't recall ever visiting the neighbors in our Sunday best. And my ma was always worried that I would do something foolish and rip or tear my suit, so usually she wanted me out of it as soon as we got home. "After we arrived for our visit, we were seated in the family room, where Sarah's mother served us tea. There was some small talk, and after a couple of minutes, Sarah's mother left, and returned with Sarah. "Once Sarah had arrived in the room, the talk turned to gifts of property, of sharing the expenses of building houses and barns. Then my father began to, I hate to say it, brag about my skills as a farmer. He said I understood the crops and the seasons. He claimed I knew how to deal with the weather..." Now that got a laugh from all of the farmers! "And then mentioned a few true things, like how I could plow twice the acreage in a day of any other farmer in the county!" He said that with a huge grin, knowing that it would provoke a few of his friends. There was some good natured hooting, and sounds of disbelief. "Ok, maybe he exaggerated just a little. "But about that time I got the drift of what was going on. My folks and Sarah's parents were fixing to get us hitched! Most of you know I don't often have much to say, but I was so flummoxed by what they were saying that I couldn't have said a word if I wanted to." Pa paused for a moment. "Then I looked over and saw Sarah sitting there, with her hands resting in her lap, in her blue church dress. Up to that time, I had never paid too much attention to Sarah. She was five years younger than I was, and the last time I had noticed, she was a little girl. But the Sarah I was looking at that day was a young woman, with hair the color of new corn silk, and eyes that were blue as the sky on a cloudless summer day. Her skin was perfect, and the phrase 'peaches and cream' described what I saw that afternoon." I snuck a peek at Mother about then, and she was blushing as she sat listening to Pa. "I seem to remember Sarah's parents speaking in the background. I didn't hear what they had to say, I couldn't hear what they had to say. My heart was beating so loudly that my ears could only hear the blood pulsing. I was completely fixated on Sarah by then. "And it wasn't just her beauty that had captivated me; I could see in her face and her jaw and mouth, her determination, strength, and indomitable spirit. As I looked at her, a voice in my mind said, 'this is a woman for the long haul, a woman who will stand by you, who will stand with you.' "I knew at that moment that Sarah would be the mother of my children. She would be the woman with whom I would spend my life." Father stopped again, and looked over the pulpit at the people, sitting intently listening to his words. He looked at me and caught my eyes. "Yesterday, my daughter Lizzie asked me what I thought about love and romance. After we talked and as she was leaving me to return to the house, she told me that she wasn't sure that her mother, my Sarah, knew that I loved her. "Now, I've always thought that it was most important for a man to show his love for his wife and family with his actions. What do they say — that actions speak louder than words. And I've always tried my best to show my family my love. "But after Lizzie said that, I thought and prayed, and I realized that I had failed my wife. I had failed her, because while it is necessary to show your love through your acts, it is also necessary to tell the people you love that you love them. It is a needful confirmation." He looked directly into Mother's eyes before he continued, "So, before God, before this congregation, before our friends and neighbors, and the community, I have to say this: "Sarah, I fell in love with you that day in your parents parlor; when my Father asked me whether I would accept you as my wife, I said that I did, and I meant it with all of my heart. "And although I found it almost impossible to believe that I could love you any more, two weeks later, when you walked down the aisle of this church to become my bride, my heart almost burst with love and pride and happiness. "And Sarah, I want you to know, that I love you even more today than I did the day we were married. And to make up for my neglecting to tell you often enough in plain words, how much I love you: on this, our wedding anniversary, I pledge that I will remind you every day for the rest of our lives." I looked at Mother, with tears in my eyes and saw the tears streaming down her face as well. But she was smiling, and was unashamed by her tears. She looked up at Pa, and silently mouthed the words, "I love you too, David." Father stepped down from the pulpit, and walked back to our pew. He sat down next to mother, and she took his arm , that muscled, strong arm, and wrapped her arm around his, and held him tight. The joy and pride in Mother's face left her aglow with an internal light. The Reverend Dr. McGinley stood back up at the pulpit. "And the people say?" he asked. "Amen!" was the congregation's fervent and emotional response. Now before he started to speak it was Dr. McGinley's turn for a moment of silence, "Brothers and Sisters, I wrote a fine sermon for this morning, about Moses leading his people to the promise land. I think that I will wait for another day to give it. "Thank you Brother David for your words of wisdom and love. They bring to mind the passage in First Corinthians: And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. "I can't think of any better thing to do today, the Lord's day, than for each of us to spend an afternoon with the people we love, letting them know just how much we love them. So let us enjoy God's blessing, and be especially thankful for our families on this beautiful day. "And thank you Brother David for your fine 'sermon'. Just don't get too used to my pulpit!" he teased, shaking his finger at Father, before going to the closing prayer. When we left the church, Mother was still clinging to Father's arm, although shortly after we were out of the building one way or another Ma and Pa were separated. Mother seemed to be surrounded by all of the women in the congregation. They were laughing and smiling, and whatever they were saying over there, everyone was happy. I looked at Mother, though, and I noticed that even though she was speaking with the other ladies, her eyes never left Father. And as Father was standing there waiting for Mother, the men would come up and firmly shake his hand and say a few quiet words to him. He would nod, or respond in his deep voice. Oddly enough, his eyes never left Mother either! And with their eyes constantly in touch, it was as if they were the only two people standing in the field. After some time had passed and the family was gathered together again, to celebrate this special day, we took the buggy into town and ate at the restaurant in the hotel on Main Street. We didn't eat in town often, only on very special occasions, and this was one of Pa's ways of telling Mother just how much he meant his words. It wasn't until later that evening, after dinner, that I spoke to Father alone again, as we were cleaning up in the kitchen. "Pa," I told him, "I thought you said that you didn't know much about romance?" He looked at me with one eyebrow raised, waiting for me to continue. "What you did in church this morning was just about the most romantic thing I've ever heard of," I said. He sighed and then smiled. "Lizzie, if you say that it was romantic to make a public declaration of my love for your Ma... well, I'll believe you. "And you've taught me something I didn't know, this weekend." "What?" I queried. "Remember how I described 'love' as a Temple?" I nodded. "I didn't understand that there was a vital column in that Temple that I'd been ignoring and neglecting for a long time — which you call 'romance.' So I have a lot of work to do repairing that column, making sure it is strong and sure. Wouldn't want the roof of the Temple coming down on my head, like Samson, would I?" At dusk, I was walking around, just enjoying the cool of the evening, and I found myself on the path to the pond again. But as I started up the step that time, I could see Mother and Father sitting together on that bench overlooking the pond, their arms around each other's waists sitting there, talking. I retreated lickity-split, as not to disturb them. ******* Sarah looked up at me. "And what happened next, Grandma?" I relaxed and remembered back to those times, as my parents grew old together, and my brothers and I went off, married and had families of our own. The Temple Called Love "Your Grandfather was true to his word, and there was never another day passed that he didn't tell your Grandmother that he loved her, and needed her, more each day. And Grandmother would always tell him that she'd loved him for as long as she could remember, so there was no point in changing now. They would smile, and kiss, and then they could go on with their day. And it was never just a habit for them. Each time they said it, they meant it." "So," Sarah interjected, "They lived happily ever after." "Yes, they did, Sarah, because they took the time to grow together. Until Grandmother passed in her sleep when she was seventy-five years old. By then Grandpa was almost eighty-years old, and when she passed, he refused to mourn — because he said he would be joining her soon. Less than two months later, he did go to be with her." "And they're buried together in the cemetery, right?" I nodded, with tears in my eyes, just like I always got when I told my parent's story. "Can we go visit with them, Grandma?" Sarah asked. I agreed, and together Sarah and I went out to the car, and spent an hour or so at the cemetery visiting with the two people who loved each other more than any others I've ever known. Then for awhile we both sat on the bench above their graves as I told my Granddaughter more about my memories of them. Especially how through the years they built and rebuilt stronger their Temple of Love. Another story that strays from my 'normal' tales. I've had this concept of 'love' forming and evolving for quite some time, but it took me awhile to develop a story using it. This story also differs from the prototypical 'romance' in two ways: most romances take place at the beginning of a relationship, and there is usually some seemingly insurmountable obstacles against the lovers actually being together. Clearly, those two conditions are not true in this story. Nevertheless, it remains a romance to me. PostScriptor