Uncompromised Love.

Love has always been the driving force of life. And by “love” I do not just mean passion though that obviously plays a part. I am talking about the love between friends; between husband and wife (or the equivalent partners) that develops after many years of life together; between parents and their children and love for Humanity. That kind of love – which IS uncompromised.

The power of love is recognized in poetry, in song, in novels and literature, in art and in opera - it is the power that drives us all. This cannot be just “chemicals in the brain” or hormonal juices, there is much more to it than that!

Now I loved my wife in a manner that I find difficult to portray in a meaningful way to others. Tenderness – yes; closeness – yes; deep understanding – yes; ability to communicate without necessarily speaking – yes; trust – yes; talking about problems – yes; sharing – yes; respect – yes, all this and more that I do not have the words to explain.

While neither of us was in anyway saintly, there was a fulfillment that seemed to make the two of us stronger in our own way. Magucha was an amazingly strong person, not physically strong (she was very small in stature) but emotionally and mentally she was spring steel. Her resilience, which defied all that the world could throw at her, astonished everyone with whom she came in contact.

This strength – which I, for one, found quite inspiring – is epitomized by the following poem by Alfred Noyes, and this is for her:

The Anvil

Stand like a beaten anvil, when thy dream

            Is laid upon thee, golden from the fire.

Flinch not, though heavily through that furnace-gleam

            The black forge-hammers fall on thy desire.

Demoniac giants round thee seem to loom.

‘Tis but the world-smiths heaving to and fro.

Stand like a beaten anvil. Take the doom 

            Their ponderous weapons deal thee, blow on blow.

Needful to truth as dew-fall to the flower

            Is this wild wrath and this implacable scorn.

For every pang, new beauty, and new power,

            Burning blood-red shall on thy heart be born.

Stand like a beaten anvil. Let earth’s wrong

Beat on that iron and ring back in song.