A Love Story.

I have written about love before, numerous times. I posses a romantic mind, a passionate heart and a strong conviction that life without love isn't much of a life. Despite pain and disappointments, which often rule the world, the proof of love's infinite allure and true existence is nevertheless endlessly obvious.

Considering it is Valentine's Day today, I thought I would revisit this emotion once again and I do so with great pleasure and joy.

To love is to live and to be able to continue feeling love throughout life is a gift. Love takes many shapes and can be expressed in so many ways. It can be romantic or platonic, fleeting and everlasting, unrequited or unconditional, passionate or tender, flamboyant or covert - but it has one single constant - it defines us as human beings and makes life bearable. It inspires great artists, musicians, writers and poets and it comes across as the reason why we are here, as it connects us all.

The romantic love is often viewed as an illusion. The cynics will say it is a short lived infatuation, almost a clinical condition - an illness if you will. A possession that makes us blind, as we view reality through the eyes of temporary insanity. Perhaps that is the truth. But perhaps those who believe this never really had the courage to fall in love.

As I know it takes courage to fall the way that makes us look foolish and exposed, utterly vulnerable, while we risk being ridiculed and ultimately have our heart shattered into thousands of pieces. Nevertheless, to give fearlessly into those transcending feelings despite the knowledge that we might be forced to walk away empty handed and disappointed is the essence of true love - this is the only way I know how to love.

Thus the love stories of great sacrifices are the most romantic of them all in my eyes. The ones where great men and at times women would give up so much, as they simply could not see themselves face a life where the object of their desire was not present.

Such is the tale of King Edward of England and his love, Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee for whom the king gave up his throne. Some view this as the love story of the century, while many as a scandal that threatened to weaken the monarchy.

I fall into the first category, in no uncertain terms.

Edward became king in January 1936 and had many desires to become a modern monarch. He intended to marry Wallis Simpson, a woman he fell deeply and passionately in love with and who returned his love with the same token. However, he was informed by the prime minister that his subjects would deem the marriage morally unacceptable, largely because remarriage after divorce was opposed by the Church of England, and the people would not tolerate Wallis as Queen.

Thus after only barely a year on the throne, in December 1936, Edward, now reverted to the style of prince, made a broadcast to the nation and the Empire, explaining his decision to abdicate. He famously said, 

"I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love."

Wallis and Edward married in a small ceremony on June 3, 1937. They remained shun by the royal family and forced into exile for the rest of their lives; nevertheless they remained loyally devoted to each other until the Duke's death in Paris in 1972. Wallis died 14 years later in 1986.
They are buried beside one another in the royal burial grounds of Windsor Castle.