POETRY

May your marriage bring you all the exquisite
excitement marriage should bring,
and may life grant you also patience,
tolerance, and understanding.
May you always need one another –
not so much to fill your emptiness
as to help you to know your fullness.
A mountain needs a valley to be complete;
the valley does not make
the mountain less, but more;
and the valley is more a valley because
it has a mountain towering over it.
May you need one another, but not out of weakness.
May you want one another, but not out of lack.
May you entice one another, but not compel one another.
May you embrace one another, but not out encircle one another.
May you succeed in all important ways with one another,
and not fail in the little graces.
May you look for things to praise, often say, “I love you!”
and take no notice of small faults.
If you have quarrels that push you apart,
may both of you hope to have
good sense enough to take the first step back.
May you enter into the mystery which is
the awareness of one another’s
presence – no more physical than spiritual,
warm and near when you are
side by side, and warm and near when
you are in separate rooms
or even distant cities.
May you have happiness,
and may you find it making one another happy.
May you have love, and may you find it loving one another.

James Dillet Freeman

Love is a friendship that has caught fire.
It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving.
It is loyalty through good and bad.
It settles for less than perfection,
and makes allowances for human weakness.

Love is content with the present.
It hopes for the future and it doesn’t brood over the past.
It’s the day-in and day-out chronicle of irritations, problems,
compromises, small disappointments, big victories,
and working toward common goals.

If you have love in your life,
it can make up for a great many things you lack.
If you don’t have it, no matter what else there is,
it is not enough, so search for it, ask God for it, and share it!

Never marry but for love;
but see that thou lovest what is lovely.
He that minds a body and not a soul
has not the better part of that relationship,
and will consequently lack
the noblest comfort of a married life.
Between a man and his wife nothing ought rule but love.
As love ought to bring them together, so it is the best way
to keep them well together.

A husband and wife that love one another
show their children that they should do so too.
Others visibly lose their authority in their families by
their contempt of one another, and teach their children to be
unnatural by their own examples.
Let not enjoyment lessen, but augment, affection;
it being the basest of passions to like
when we have not, what we slight when we possess.
Here it is we ought to search out our pleasure,
where the field is large and full of variety,
and of an enduring nature; sickness,
poverty or disgrace being not able to
shake it because it is not under
the moving influences of worldly contingencies.

Nothing can be more entire and without reserve;
nothing more zealous, affectionate and sincere;
nothing more contented than such a couple,
nor greater temporal felicity
than to be one of them.

William Penn

I met Nick in med school several years ago, I knew then he was the one for me, his beautiful smile, dark hair, of course how he made me laugh…
We fell in love, it was perfect….he kissed me under the stars on a pier out in the ocean, we shared our dreams of having 5 kids, I never felt happier with anyone else since then
We parted, went back to our significant others, he’s happily married and has a son now, my marriage ended before it even started……and now I look back always thinking of Nick, wishing him well and remembering such great times between us, a great love lost in time.
Our timing was off and there’s no going back even though I always think of him.

Sitting by the river
Dreaming through my reflection
I wonder what has happened
What has caused this distance

We used to be together
Cuddling close to each other
What came between our beautiful love?
I don’t know, though I wish to

I can see you now, not alone
You’re holding a hand that’s not mine
Where am I? Why not next to you?
Why am I away? I don’t understand

You’re smiling to the fullest
I am not the one making you happy
You are glancing at someone else
Why is it not me?

Seeing you after such a long time
My heart sighs again
Something inside me growls loud
‘Cause now your hand runs through her hair

I stand some distance well away
But the surroundings disappear
When I look at you, I feel lost inside
I wish you back, my angel

There you are, holding her hand
And I am lost, trying to understand…
I want you back, I really do
Just to hold your hand
And walk with you