What Makes a Love Everlasting?
The question came up at the Everlasting Loop at eHarlequin (http://community.eharlequin.com) about knowing any real-life everlasting love stories. Several memories of grandparents were shared, with examples of them living and loving together for years.
Of course, that conversation started a lot of questions in my mind — which is how I always end up working toward another book idea. Can everlasting loves only be discovered after the fact? Does a love have to stand the full test of time before it’s considered everlasting?
With fiction, it’s easy to know that a love will be everlasting — the authors can create a couple who will stay together, weathering all the ups and downs of a relationship, surviving the rough times, and making it to the end of their lives. As real people, it’s trickier. We may want to have an everlasting love, we may think we’re on the right track for an everlasting love, and then. . . life may get in the way.
But isn’t that what a romance can do — show how couples do work through problems, do listen and come back together after a crisis? The biggest complaint we usually hear from critics of romance novels is that they’re make-believe, not real life. But aren’t the best books reflecting real life, giving authors and characters a chance to make sense of a world that sometimes doesn’t make sense? I explore relationships when I write my books, looking at ways to keep my characters together through the craziness of their lives.
I want to do the same thing with my husband. Life has thrown us a lot of curves, just like it does for everyone. We’ve moved to new communities, changed jobs, had children. . . in short, dealt with all the things that happen to people. Sometimes our life has been a comedy. Sometimes we’ve had suspense and tragedy.
So, our books are fiction and yet they mirror life. They’re realistic and yet an escape from our everyday world. And when all is said and done, I hope my real life love is just as everlasting as the loves I portray in my books.
