How to Love

The greatest love story

Romanticism.  Romanticism values imagination and emotion over rationality.  Romanticism doesn’t necessarily mean romantic.  It can simply mean that a painting or song is extremely emotional.  Many famous paintings in the category of romanticism feature either a war or love scene, as war and love are the two most emotional experiences of one’s life.  Romanticism paintings are often comprised of sharp contrasts in colors with many light and dark colors, causing the light to seemingly shine like the brightest star and the dark seemingly swallow the light like a deep cave.  The lights are brighter, the darks are darker; everything is emphasized by this; everything is emotional.

It’s paintings like these that helped push America towards a Civil War.  As Romanticism began to blossom and show glorious images of ancient battles, America was debating over state’s rights.  People developed a false sense of splendor from these romantic paintings of war.  It was only after the war began that photographs of piles of dead soldiers showed the American people that war was no majestic grandeur.

It was these photographs that disenchanted people from their thoughts of heroic battles; people came to their senses.  The romantic paintings weren’t realistic and the American people found out that war was not as celestial as it was depicted.

It is from this history of an artistic era that we get the term “Romantic” when describing someone with seemingly high, or “unrealistic” goals.  A romantic may be called a dreamer or an idealist because a romantic views man as being full of potential; always able to improve and get better.  Where a “realist” would say, “Fairytale love stories don’t exist,” a romantic would say, “Why can’t a modern day love story happen? And why can’t I be a part of it?”

For a portion of my life, I viewed myself as a cynic when it came to matters of the heart.  There was no such thing as true love between two people.  Fairytales happened in the studios of Walt Disney World and nowhere else.  Sure two people could love each other long enough to die in love, but if they had the chance to live longer, I felt that two people would eventually fall out of love.  That was my belief.  And anyone who thought Prince Charming and Cinderella would love each other their whole lives was labeled a dreamer in my book.

Until one man proved me wrong.  One hell of a man,  proved me wrong.

Edward Wintz "Pops" Bercegeay's 90th birthday celebration

The thing about fairytales is that it’s easy to say, “It’s just a movie,” when the characters are animated, or when you can point out flaws in the plot (No way they’d let that guy past security to stop the girl from boarding the plane and leaving forever).  But you can’t call bullshit on something that happens in life.  Because life isn’t a movie.  Everything that happens is true.  It may not make sense, but it is true.

I recently went to Atlanta to celebrate my grandfather’s 90^th birthday.  He still has all his marbles in his jar, but my grandmother suffers from severe dementia.  She’s still able to recognize all of us, (or at least understand that we’re not strangers) but where she once was able to enjoy conversation, she now snaps at us, frustrated by the confusion around her.  She has even had my grandfather, her husband of 62 years, sleep on the couch because she’s “engaged to Eddie (my grandfather).”

At my grandfather’s 90^th birthday party, all our cousins and aunts and uncles went to their house, as they are not as mobile as they once were.  Half an hour into setting up, we were promptly told by my grandmother to sit down because we were there to discuss a wedding.  She had no understanding that we were actually there to celebrate her husband’s birthday.

It was only after pleading from my grandfather that we were allowed to continue the celebration.  I remember thinking how hurtful it would be, even if it were the fault of Alzheimer’s, that my wife of 62 years asked me whose birthday we were celebrating.  But my grandfather never snapped, rather subtly reminded her each time she asked that it was his birthday that was being celebrated.

Watching my grandfather love my grandmother was a beautiful thing.  That day, watching them interact, was a better love story than anything Disney could make.  The way my grandfather loves my grandmother is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.  He wasn’t just saying “I do” during the wedding because that was what he was supposed to say.  He listened and understood what he was committing himself to; how he was supposed to love his wife, “In sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do us part.”

She doesn’t know who he is all the time, but he will always show her that he loves her.  Is it rational to stay with someone who doesn’t remember you?  It’s easy to argue that it’s not.  What’s the point of cherishing someone, I mean really, truly caring and cherishing someone every single second of every single day, if they’re not able to remember who you are?  Only a crazy person would do that; only someone who has fallen deeply, hopelessly, in love.  A lesser man might leave my grandmother.  But that wouldn’t be true love.

Edward and Evangeline Bercegeay

True love remembers the good times; it remembers that this bitter woman isn’t the person that she really is.  It remembers that deep down, the woman that my grandfather married is in there and still loves him as much as he loves her.  It remembers that to abandon her would be to abandon his vows; to counterfeit his love for her.

How heartbreaking it must be to love someone who doesn’t recognize you as their spouse all the time.  And yet, he loves her just as much as the day he proposed.

The love story between my grandparents is a unique one, and I learned a lot from seeing how my grandfather acts in their relationship.  I learned that I need to be patient.  I learned that I need to be committed to my future wife, and that vows aren’t just words.  But mostly I learned that fairytales sometimes transcend the silver screen and people who have the audacity to believe that love can last forever aren’t foolish or irrational.  I’ve even come to believe that myself:

The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Forever in love

Jay William is a freelance writer.  Follow him on Twitter @Jaywilliam1 and email at jwilliamdillard@gmail.com.  Thoughts, comments, and suggestions are appreciated. Select responses could end up in a mailbag by Jay himself.