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Love is sharing and caring
By Anne
It's February 14, and I just read a news paragraph in a morning paper to the effect that some over-zealous nationalists in Bombay had set fire to a stack of Valentine's Day cards which they said promoted Western values that were contrary to the Indian culture. There are some `patriots' over in our sunny isle, too, who gnash their teeth over the goings-on in Colombo on Feb. 14. Our young ones merely respond to the brouhaha put on by the media and the commercial sector - the hotels, chocolate and card shops and florists.

Yet I do know many level-headed young people who don't feel pressurized by the media nonsense or the high-powered sales talk. Love, as the wise ones (young, middle-aged or old), know - the genuine article - is something quite apart from these sensational symbols. Let those who enjoy a fling on Valentine's Day do so, but hopefully they will not mistake the shadow for the substance, or be so mesmerised by the glitter of the spurious that they will fail to recognize the real thing if it comes their way.

Which of us doesn't yearn for love? Only muddled and misguided thinking equates love with material things, or sees it as the fascination of a pretty face or figure, the spell cast by a human body, male or female. Physical attraction is natural and affects us all to some extent, but it's the emotional affinity that puts the seal on a relationship, as every true lover knows. There is an incredible warmth and tenderness then, a delight in the whole person and not just in her or his body. The sexual expression is only a part of the loving and giving between two such beings and is greatly enhanced by the close rapport they feel in every area.

It was Dr. Eustace Chesser (a name probably unknown to today's generation), who wrote in one of his books that when sex grows up in us, it blossoms in a host of shared activities between the couple. Happily married men and women will know the pleasure they derive from such joint activities as romping with their children, listening to music together, having a game of badminton or scrabble or chess, going on long walks, bird-watching, gardening or discussing a book.

The sex drive does wane with age, but what does grow and develop and endure between a loving couple is a tenderness that outlasts passion, a sense of togetherness that binds them ever closer together.

After 50 years of marriage, my husband would call out to me to come to look at 3 new olu blooms raising their petals to the morning sun in our pond; when a kingfisher perched on the araliya tree or a colourful butterfly appeared in the garden, I would summon him to share the happy sight.

Every evening, we would sit in our little back-lawn, talking or sitting in companionable silence as we enjoyed the tranquil hour and watched the birds flying home to their nests and the changing colours of the evening sky.

We would memorise jokes read in the Reader's Digest, to tell each other. One February day last year - the last we shared together - he came in from the garden in the morning with a small bunch of flowers from his plants and handed it to me. I looked surprised, I expect, and he said rather shyly that it was Valentine's day! I hugged him and thanked him, placing the small posy in a little vase. The 59 years and 5 months of loving and living together seem to have flown like an all-too-fleeting dream.

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