Forever in Love: A Celebration of Love and Romance Book

A Letter to Readers     xiv
Thanks     xvii
The Search
My Beautiful Love, As Yet Unknown     2
In Transit     3
The Blues     4
You, I Hope to Find     5
My First Love Story     6
The Attraction
Him     8
Transforming Love     10
Brown Eyes     11
Seeing You     12
I Think I Am in Love     13
Longing
Say     16
Wild Nights! Wild Nights!     17
While I Asked Myself     18
At the Half-Chance of Being Loved     19
My Heart     20
Appoggiatura     21
Only You     22
Courtship
The Bait     24
Every Kiss Provokes Another     25
Questions     26
Last Name     28
Merging
The Kiss     30
Remembering     31
A Love Song     32
Now!     33
Beloved     34
Request     35
Commitment
This Night     38
Night Secret     39
Basket of Figs     40
A Heart Full of Love     41
Unconditional     42
Although I Conquer All the Earth     43
Double Image     44
Give Me Ten More Years     45
The Gift     46
Oath of Friendship     47
Early Years
First House     50
Love Poem     52
Roots     53
Marriage Takes Work     54
Summer on the Farm     55
We Can     56
Daily Life
Ordinary Life     58
Warranty     60
Away in Virginia, I See a Mustard Field and Think of You     61
From the Astronaut of Your Heart     62
Love Life     64
To Turn from My Forgetting     66
Upon Awakening     68
Why     69
Small Failures as a Wife     70
Husband Out of Town Thinks About His Wife     72
Finding Us in Jackson Pollack     73
The Best Part     74
Choices     75
Gratitude     76
In This Season     77
In the Middle     78
Struggles
Marriage Work     82
Surviving the Seasons     83
Another New England Winter     84
Cooperation      86
How to Return to Your Husband     87
Long After the Loss     88
Calling Truce     90
Sleeping with You     91
Mature Love
Tenth Anniversary     94
In the Light of Another Moon     96
For My Beloved     97
To My Husband on Our Anniversary     98
Their Adventures     99
First Kiss     100
Anniversary     102
My Wife Breaks Out     104
After All These Years of Loving You     105
Possibly     106
Magic     108
Walking in Monet's Gardens at Giverny     109
Later Years
Husband Song     112
I Held Her Hand Like Porcelain     113
Epithalamium     114
Book Lovers     115
Transition     116
Long Run Play     117
In the Comfort Zone     118
Still Life     119
In Sickness
Living Will     122
For Better, For Worse     123
If We Let It     124
For My Wife in the Bone Marrow Unit     126
Love...and Chemo     127
Touch     128
After His Second Heart Attack: A Psalm     129
Porcelain Fragments     130
My Husband's First Time Out Since the Diagnosis     132
Helpless     134
Partings
This Love     136
Aftereffects     138
Alone     139
The Widow     140
Driving Alone     142
At the Cimitiere de Montmartre     143
Passage     144
On Valentine's Day     146
Seasons Lost     148
Alone Is an Empty House     150
Music, When Soft Voices Die     151
You Are Still Here     152
Be with Me     153
Migration     154
Reflections
Marriage     156
Loving the Distance Between Them     157
What Counts     158
Once in a Lifetime     159
The Living Dream     160
The Greatest Blessing in Marriage     161
Marriage Is a Spiritual Contract     162
Author Index     163
Permissions and Acknowledgments     167
About the Author     173