My good friend was telling me how his grandparents were married for almost 70 years, and when his grandfather passed away, she lived on for four more years but in spirit she passed away with him. Her health collapsed, her energy depleted, and her personality diminished. Marriage for her was union, and when he died a part of her had to die with him.
It poignantly reminded me what Rav Soloveitchik wrote, which, incidentally, when I read his writings, I feel like they are letters I wrote to myself. He said that when a man asks a woman to marry him, he in effect is saying I can’t live without you, so be with me because I need you. And if she says yes, she, in effect, is saying I can’t live without you either and need to be with you – forever.
My friends’s grandparents embodied that. They couldn’t live without each other, and when he perished, her humanity diminished. There is the grand, romantic side to love that we see and hear about. Yet there is a sinister side to love which although is excruciatingly painful, nonetheless, is just as beautiful – and in the most literal sense – to die for.
2014