We can always react

Commentary

In our love story, at that age when we first chose each other, we gave one another our future ages. That is why we renew our love again and again. When change comes, we put in the growth, qualities, and resources each new age demands.

Life expectancy has increased, and the number of years the “veterans” of conjugal love reach with it. That is, seniors with their golden wedding anniversary approaching or already accomplished. As we advance in years, we can experience an extraordinary fact. The body loses strength and energy, its activity declines, and a series of “goods,” such as physical beauty, fade away, irremediably and relentlessly, because they were transient. At the same time, while the body is fading, we can experience that the values of our spirit, far from following the same declining dynamism of the body, can continue to grow without end, ever deeper, ever stronger, and ever “younger.”

Here is an example available to all veterans of love. Our spouse, a child, or a granddaughter – someone we care about and love – arrives home from a long trip. We hug them, kiss them, or stroke their cheek. Our arms, lips, and hands are not the same as in our twenties. Perhaps we suffer from some arthrosis in the shoulder, our eyes – behind our glasses – might be somewhat buried in their sockets and surrounded by wrinkles, our lips might have lost their freshness and are no longer fleshy, and our hands might be wrinkled and full of age spots. Nevertheless, our personal spirit, when we embrace, look at, kiss, and are affectionate with our loved ones, is not wrinkled and arthritic but can emerge in our eyes, lips, arms, and hands with enormous intensity, depth, and loving truth, with intense warmth and more profound tenderness, and even more “youthful” or alive than when we had a younger body.

How can this miracle occur? It is a miracle of the personal spirit, the “who” that loves. And whose goods and value, unlike those of the body, do not decay and fade away. They can grow without end. The elderly and love veterans, within our tired eyes and wrinkled hands, can be present in a more patient, tender, generous, intense, affectionate, and loving way. The beauty of the soul surpasses the beauty of the body.

Nowadays, our marriages are prolonged in time, lasting four, five, or six decades. What an experience of renewal and depth of love to prepare for this stage! Together, with the necessary corrections, we have to choose each other again and again to achieve a successful life, not a definitive failure. We have to help each other with this purpose greatly. To give one another the pleasure of mutual belonging, intimate companionship, and trust, of having a partner and an accomplice until death separates us. The body wrinkles and declines. However, if we know how to build it together, our love can grow, renew itself, and reach more incredible qualities and depths in our souls, hearts, and spirit. Helping each other is worth the effort. We still have enough time to reach this goal. How can that be possible after so many years together? Now, after all this time, we can understand and honestly live this truth, for when the body declines, the experience of our spirit loving our union is reborn.

The life example set by marriages with many years of life is invaluable. It is an immeasurable testimony for the new generations of our children and grandchildren. It means telling them without words, by living example, that loving each other for life is possible, that married love transforms over time, that their union of love – beneath all the wrinkles and ailments of the body – can grow inward, more solid, more intimate.