How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all write a beautiful love sonnet like Elizabeth Barrett Browning!
Most of us are not poets, but we have loved someone.
During these unprecedented times, we may have lost a loved one to this horrid pandemic. Certainly with so much time on our hands, we have been able to reflect on those we have loved and lost or simply loved. They are not lost!
Some of us may be experiencing too much togetherness with our household bubble consisting of just you and your beloved. You might wish they were lost for at least an hour or two!
In celebration of love and Valentine’s Day, C.A.R.P. invites you to our Zoom event on Tuesday, Feb. 16, from 1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. As you know, we can’t get together in person due to the pandemic but we can gather online. We invite you to participate by sharing your memories of love. It may be about the first time you laid eyes on your partner, or maybe it’s about the one who got away. It may be about your wedding day, the birth of a child, or it could be a story about your beloved pet. Or musings about love in this last year of lockdown.
With apologies to novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it won’t be Love in the Time of Cholera; rather Love in the Time of COVID.
In 400 words or less, write your story and share it with us in this online Valentine lovefest for older adults. Here is your chance to write some prose or poetry or a mini-story. There will be love, laughter, and tears of joy as we share our love stories with each other. And music with songs by Steve ‘Elvis’ Elliott and Alyssa Nielsen.
Here is a love poem I wrote last year for my guy, as you know how much I adore writing poetry!
Six years have flown by…how can it be!
A lifetime of you and six years of me.
It was not long ago we dined at the Vault
I still haven’t left and that isn’t my fault.
It’s cause you are thoughtful and loving and kind
Who was it who said that all love is blind?
With our watery eyes only made for each other
And you loving me tho’ I look like my mother!
We have travelled the world and emptied your bank
A bucket list complete with my dear boy to thank
Whether cruising the Danube or in exotic Tahiti
Or a month in the jungle swimming nude with my sweetie.
It doesn’t matter where we are as long as we’re together
Could be my deck or yours in warm sunny weather
Or asleep on the couch or curled up in bed
As long as there’s whiskey and we both are well fed.
We’ve weathered the storms and the numerous tiffs
The shouldas and couldas and all the what ifs
With major life changes, you’ve come through with zest
Gone the detritus of life…who would have guessed?
And just when we thought that life was a breeze
A pandemic has stressed us and caused us unease.
But together we’ll face this and strong we will be
Martini and April…that’s you and that’s me!
But now it’s your turn! We want to hear from you in 400 words or less.
Please email your submission by February 12th to whiterocksurrey@carp.ca. Register for this free event at www.eventbrite.ca/e/memories-of-love-tickets-138549054953
April Lewis is a communications director for CARP, a national group committed to a ‘New Vision of Aging for Canada.’