Category: For Readers (Page 1 of 11)

5 Reasons to Re-Read

March 18, 2026 / Alice Valdal / 0 Comments

I enjoy checking other people’s book recommendations, so I browse the blogosphere with that goal in mind. Lately, I’ve been struck by the number of people who are re-reading their favourite books — not just the classics, but popular fiction as well. I’m curious about what may have spurred this surge in re-reads.

I offer five suggestions.

1. Comfort

Re-reading a favourite novel is like meeting up with an old friend. You already know you like each other. You have interests in common. There will be no unpleasant surprises. You are at ease in each other’s company. No need for lengthy explanations. Just enjoyable time together. You don’t have to put on make-up or do your hair.

Taking a favourite off the shelf is a bit like that. I think a re-read epitomizes the decision to “curl up with a good book.

2. Craft

The first reading of novel focuses primarily on the “what.” Whodunnit? Will love triumph? Will the quest be fulfilled? These are the main plot points and the reader is drawn into the story through them. However, on a re-read, we already know the answer to those broad questions. This time we might be more interested in “how” the writer accomplishes his/her ends. Why did this book merit a second or third reading? Was it author voice? Was it setting? Intriguing characters? As writers we might study these questions and use the answer to hone our own craft.

3. No AI

Artificial Intelligence has burst into our world with shocking speed. Every bit of data that comes across our platforms must be questioned and assessed. Is it true? It this a real person? Is this an AI image? Reading has become an exercise in fact-checking. With a previously read book, there is no such danger. We are free to explore without fear. This old friend is an “open book” giving us permission to wander in the story and wonder about the human condition exposed between the pages. And it is the “human” condition.

4. Discovery

Even though this book is your old friend, you are a different person from the one you were when you read it last. You may find that you’ve outgrown this relationship. You may find instances of bigotry and hatred you missed the first time around, because your senses weren’t attuned to them. Perhaps you are just “older and wiser” and this story no longer speaks to you. You may, with regret, consign this old friend to the “donate” pile.

Or you may discover that the author had challenged societal norms before you were aware of them. You may find the writer discusses love and life in a way that went over your head years ago but reflects some of the lessons you’ve learned since your last reading. You finish your re-read and thank your old friend for opening your eyes. You put it back on the keeper shelf with a murmur of approval. You’ll talk again a few years down the road.

5. Enlightenment

Our modern selves are bombarded with an ever-increasing storm of information.–some of it incomplete, some of it biased, some of it downright false. Sorting the wheat from the chaff can be exhausting. We might ask, “how did we come to this?”

Books written in an earlier age can throw a light on our present dilemma. We are so close to the issues of today, it is difficult to separate fact from emotion. When we read about events from Jane Austen’s point of view, we can be more dispassionate in our judgement. Women still trade personal preferences for security in marriage but we mustn’t rush to judgement.

Why does Shakespeare have such staying power? Because he speaks of universal truths, even when rooted in a particular history. While we may not recognize the folly of our current leaders, we can readily recognize overweening ambition in Macbeth, or the hubris of King Lear who cannot tell appearance from reality.

We likely studied these works as teenagers or young adults. Re-reading them as mature adults, with years of life experience to draw on, presents us with a “new” reading experience.

I’ve had a browse through my own bookshelves and discovered some old treasurers. Lloyd C. Douglas and Taylor Caldwell wrote about good and evil, in a way that was true for them but may feel dated today. Yet, good and evil continue to plague humanity. There is still something to learn from these books.

The Loon Feather, by Iola Fuller was the first book I ever read that featured an Indigenous heroine. (She was called “Indian” in that time.) Long before I knew anything about residential schools, this story made me angry that the proud daughter of Tecumseh was pressured to throw off her buckskins and the freedom that went with them, and don the restrictive corsets and heavy dresses of White society. I think it’s time to give that one a re-read.

What are your favourite re-reads? Why do you go back to them again and again?

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Writing Motto for 2026

January 28, 2026 / Alice Valdal / 0 Comments

According to the puzzle page in my daily newspaper, today is world daisy day. Daisies have a day. Who knew?

According to the encyclopedia Britannica, plants called daisies are distinguished by a composite flower head composed of 15 to 30 white ray flowers surrounding a centre consisting of bright yellow disk flowers, though other colour combinations are common.

Whatever the botanical characteristics of a daisy, their happy faces always make me smile. I guess it is that “bright yellow disk” thing. I have several clumps of Shasta daisies in my flower beds. They can be a bit of weed, but I can always count on them to survive a hard winter, to thrive on neglect, and to nod in gentle greeting whenever the wind passes by. Reliable, cheerful, resilient — those are the characteristics I’d list if I were writing a text to define “daisy.”

Those same characteristics describe my reading choices this month. I don’t want edgy, or dark, or mafia, or several of the other categories the book stores list. I want books that read like the daisy, — reliable, cheerful, resilient. Another blog I follow has a segment called “Good Book Thursday,” I’ve noticed that many of the comments are from folks re-reading their favourite novels and authors. Maybe it’s the daisy-effect. Whatever their personal taste, readers are looking for “reliable” reads.

I’ve just finished two books from my Christmas haul that land in that category. The authors deliver a reliable story, told in a predictable style with characters the reader expects. Re-reading means the book-lover is not reading for story alone, but for voice and style and comfort. Louise Penny’s readers love “Three Pines.” They want to go to that imaginary village and just hang out with the characters they’ve come to know. Alexander McCall Smith’s readers find themselves in Africa or Scotland so place is not so significant, but they can anticipate long rambling passages that discuss life and philosophy — a slow read. Considering Smith’s legions of fans, we can assume that “slow” is okay in the right hands.

As writers, finding fans who love to re-read our book is like getting a gold star — and a cash prize at the same time. Those loyal fans will talk about your books, promote them to book clubs, give them away as gifts, and generate new readers for you.

As I consider the authors I read again and again, I try to pick out the elements that I might use in my own writing to please my fan base. Penny’s mysteries are edge-of-your-seat exciting. I know that is not my forté, but creating a village where readers can hang out — that is more within my grasp. Prospect, the town in my gold rush romances, has potential along that line. The gold rush town has a frontier appeal, there are recurring characters who have distinct personalities, the geographical setting in the Rocky Mountains has a romantic appeal. These are elements I can build on, either in another Prospect book, or in a new series.

I’m afraid I’d put readers to sleep if I spent page after page philosophizing but there are topics — like love and family — that I could develop as recognizable themes in my writing. My Christmas short story, “The Man Who Loved Christmas” is an example of family and the bonds that hold it together.

As I ponder a new chapter of writing in 2026, I’ll make “reliable, cheerful and resilient” a motto, just like the daisy.

What about you, dear reader, how do you plan to approach 2026 both in your writing and in life. Click the comment button at the top of this page to share your thoughts.

Health and Happiness

January 14, 2026 / Alice Valdal / 0 Comments

I just looked at the date on my last post here and realized I’d missed the whole month of December. Although, I missed posting here in December, I was very engaged in “life.”

As usual, Christmas came too early. I like to have my presents for mailing done by the end of November, but in 2025, they weren’t ready until the second week of December, and that required some marathon sessions with needle and thread, not to mention sweat and tears. The cause of my angst is pictured above. Every year I make tree ornaments for the “greats” in my family. Usually I crochet, cross-stitch or quilt a small item. This year I embarked on hardanger embroidery. Although the actual stitching goes fairly quickly, there is one stage of the process where you have to cut away the backing, in the middle of your stitches. That is where the sweat and tears come into play. Anyone who has ever done hand embroidery can understand the near panic I felt when taking scissors to the inside of my work.

Anyway, the project did get finished and was delivered in time for Christmas Eve. Whew! And, I learned something new. Learning something new is cited as important for health and happiness by numerous experts. Here is one example.

Another key to health and happiness is gratitude. I know this one from personal experience. Several years ago I committed to keeping a journal that listed three things I was thankful for at the start of every day. I embarked on this adventure by following Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. I had a great year. Even on the gloomiest mornings, I could conjure up gratitude. Our earth is so full of blessings, if we only look. Seeking and naming the things I was thankful for, made for a great start to the day. Once the year was over (I made it to 923 gratitudes) I looked around for something else for a morning exercise, but nothing was as successful in leading me to health and happiness.

Now it is another year. The world is still full of abundance and blessings, but I’m aware of a miasma of fear too. While I’m resolved to start the day with gratitude, in the back of my mind there is a “but . . .”

All is not well in the world at large, or in my particular corner of it. I hope that gratitude will overwhelm my fears, but they are still there. Hiding what disturbs me is a form of lying, and study after study confirms that lying is bad for our health. Lying is stressful and puts strain on the heart and lungs and brain. We live in “fight or flight” mode when we tell lies. The bigger the lie, the worse the stress.

Fiction writers often joke that they tell lies for a living, but creating a novel is not the same as lying to the teacher, or falsely accusing a friend, or cheating on a spouse. Those kinds of lies damage us both physically and emotionally.

The Sunday sermon at my church urged us to be honest with God and with each other. “Tell the truth,” the preacher said. If the answer to “how are you?” is not “fine,” then don’t say you are. Admit to loneliness, or fear, or pain, or want . . . By being honest, and naming that which is not “fine,” we reduce the stress on our own bodies, and we make ourselves available to receive help from others.

So, in 2026 I’ll continue to learn something new, I’ll start each day with gratitude, and, in my journal, I will name one thing that causes me distresses. That is my recipe for health and happiness in 2026. Petting the cat is a proven stress reliever.

How about you, dear reader? Please click on the comment button at the top of this post to share your hints for making the most of the year ahead.

Danger, Reader Ahead

November 20, 2025 / Alice Valdal

Reading

The books that have resonated with me this past two weeks are books about reading. In one an important “personage” discovers reading later in life. Of course, she has always read — letters, recipes, documents, assignments– but at this stage of her life she discovers books as a window to the world. She reads indiscriminately, taking whatever volume the librarian hands her. She has not planned what type of book is worth her time. History, fantasy, travel, romance, classics, foreign language — all are equally welcome on her bedside table.

The more the “personage” reads, the more she explores her own feelings. Because, that is what books do. They invite the reader into the world of another person. They help the reader to experience the events and feelings, of that person’s life. Our “personage” finds her values, inherited and always unquestioned, begin to soften as she gets inside the mind and heart of the characters in her books.

In the beginning, reading was a guilty pleasure for our heroine. As time goes on, and more books are studied, she looks on the people she meets in the real world with more understanding. She hears their comments from a place of vulnerability. Through the reading of books, our lady of position becomes more human.

The second book, I referenced in my last blog. In this case, the heroine of the story works with words and books all the time, but is forbidden to read them. Over and over she is told her job is “to fold the pages, not read them.” But she has a longing within her to know what the words mean, to know what knowledge they impart, to read the complete thoughts of another. She knows that she is missing something. Every time she folds a book, gathers the sections and sews it together, she wants more. She wants to know what the author said, what aspect of humanity is laid down on the written page.

Without giving away too much of the plot, I will say that, by the end of the book, she is allowed to read the books, not just bind them.

Unlike the protagonist in the first book, who discovered humanity through reading, the second heroine discovers herself through reading.

AI

In between reading these lovely books, I read several articles about the rise of AI (Artificial Intelligence)in the world and what that means for writers and artists and other “creatives.” The forecast is not hopeful. The potential for AI to replace real people in the arts is enormous — and disheartening.

AI is not human. AI can sort and regurgitate inputs at a tremendous rate of speed. A reader can order up a book in the style of Nora Roberts, set in Australia, and featuring a blind protagonist and get a readable result in minutes. What they don’t get is Nora Roberts’ understanding of the human condition. They don’t get insight — they get a distillation. They don’t get real, human emotion, they get a simulation of emotion. Remember when intellectuals scoffed at the “Reader’s Digest” version of books? They held that these condensed books missed out on the value of the writing and merely presented a summary of the story. Well if a condensed book was unworthy, AI is even worse.

Give me books that plumb the heights and depths of the human experience. Give me books that enlighten. Give me books that create empathy. Give me books of original characters that will live in my mind for days or even years to come. Only a skillful, human writer can produce Tom Sawyer, or Elizabeth Bennet, or Cinderella. Characters that have become part of our collective conscience.

AI can mimic them.

It cannot create them.

I hope that we readers, are like the characters in the two books I described–folks who explore the human condition through the imaginings of a human author. The world of the individual will improve and the world of our collective society will benefit.

Please drop a comment here.

Name that Word

February 5, 2025 / Alice Valdal

As a writer, I’m fascinated with words. I love the way they sound. I love the weird spellings of the English language. I even have a list of “beautiful words” that includes lilac, haze, mauve, sigh, lullaby, lily, sly. . . Notice how many soft consonants are in my list. Maybe it is that melodic (another favourite word) sound tht marks them as beautiful in my mind.

Among my favourite books are Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman, and Pip Williams’ The Dictionary of Lost Words. Both tell of the development of an English dictionary, how words were discovered and researched and used and, eventually, added to our word list.

The study of words, and particularly their origin is called “etyology,” not to be confused with “entomology” which is the study of insects. Notice the “ology” in both words. It means study of. Hence theology, astrology, geology, biology . . . etc.

Obviously, I could go on forever about words, but what caught my attention recently was the number of words (usually nouns) in our language that are actually the name of a person. Did you know the word “Hansom” as used in a “Hansom Cab” is named for James Hansom (handsome), an English engineer who designed the vehicle?

Nathaniel Bigot (1575 -1660) was a Puritan preacher born in Ipswich. His intolerance and zeal were such that none of the sects of the Puritan religion would admit him to membership. He frequently stood up and began preaching at the Globe theatre during Shakespeare’s plays, railing against the vanity and depravity he perceived on the stage. For his pains, he was ejected from the theatre. A supporter of Cromwell, even that dour dogmatic found Bigot a nuisance and had him arrested. He was a staunch Parliamentarian who called for the execution of Charles I. He died of apoplexy when he saw Charles II entering London at the time of the Restoration. It is questionable whether his name was given to our word, “bigot” but he certainly embodied its meaning!

I’ve always considered gingham a very homey, wholesome pattern, but one source tells me that Martha Gingham (1580-1648) was a bawdy-house keeper who dressed her “girls” in clean petticoats and neat frocks of striped or checked cloth. So much for my preconceived notion!

Don’t forget the fourth Earl of Sandwich who bestowed his name on the snack we eat between slices of bread. There are several stories about him. In one, he is credited with sponsoring Captain James Cook’s voyages. In gratitude, Cook named the Sandwich Islands in his honour. In a less flattering story, the earl, who was an inveterate gambler, didn’t want to interupt his play to eat. He created the sandwich so he could eat without getting his fingers greasy, and thus remain at the card table.

There are endless examples of men and women giving their names to the language. The examples I’ve cited are historical, but just think of how we use “Google” as a verb. A Shirley Temple is a non-alcoholic drink, Reaganomics, an economic theory named after a former president of the United States, or Scrooge to describe a miser.

The study of words provides endless fascination for a wordsmith. I’d love to hear your favourite words, just add them to the comments section of this post.

A Dark and Stormy Night

November 20, 2024 / Alice Valdal

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents – except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness … Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1830

These words, penned by Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, have long been held up as the quintessential example of overwrought, purple prose. He is even spoofed in a contest bearing his name. Entrants vie to write the worst opening lines they can conceive. In 2024 the winning entry read:

“She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.”

For such a complicated man and prolific writer, — he turned out thirteen novels, two long poems, four plays, a history of Athens, and numerous essays, as well as editing a magazine in one twelve-year stretch– I wonder if it is fair to judge him by one line of awful prose.

He wrote with a social consious and his historical works were well researched. Don’t forget, he was writing at a time that celebrated gothic novels. He was a friend of Charles Dickens — another long-winded writer — who is still respected today.

Our protagonist was a politician as well as a writer. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies from June 1858 to June 1859.

His historical fiction, The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) was a sensation in its day and remains one of Bulwer-Lytton’s two major works still being read. The other, The Coming Race is an early science fiction tale, written years before H.G.Wells and others popularized the genre. It is Bulwer-Lytton’s misfortune that this seminal work is best known as the inspiration for the name of a popular British beverage, Bovril.

Judging from a list of EBL quotes, he seems possessed of some wisdom. Consider “the pen is mightier than the sword.” A quote still in use today but written in 1839 by Bulwer-Lytton in one of his plays. He also coined the phrase “pursuit of the almighty dollar,” and invented the concept of the “dweller on the threshold,” later the title of a Van Morrison song.

Other quotes include these gems:

Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.
The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man’s observation, not overturning it.
O be very sure that no man will learn anything at all, unless he first will learn humility.
The easiest person to deceive is one’s self.

His personal life included a tempestuous marriage. At one point he had his wife locked in an insane asylum. She was later released and was seen grieving at his funeral. He had a son, who became a diplomat and a well known poet using the name Owen Meredith.

In our day, social media can make a celebrity or destroy a reputation in a matter of seconds. In Bulwer-Lytton’s day, it took a little longer for critics to sway public opinion but Bulwer-Lytton’s detractors, including Makepiece Thackery, succeeded in turning him from one of Britain’s most popular novelists into a parody of florid writing.

I do enjoy the Bulwer-Lytton contest — terrible writing, done on purpose, is very funny — but I wonder if it isn’t time to give the man a little credit for his other accomplishments.

Agony in Amethyst

October 30, 2024 / Alice Valdal

I’ve mentioned my friend, A.M. Stuart, on this blog before. She writes the Harriet Gordon series, set in early twentieth century Singapore. Well, she has just published the fifth and final installment, Agony in Amethyst. Perhaps she ran out of jewels. In any case, this tale tidies up a few loose ends left over from Terror in Topaz and brings Harriet and Curran to their HEA –finally!

If you want more background on Harriet and her times, go to A.M. Stuart books. You can see all the books in the series, watch a short video and get a free copy of the prequel The Umbrella, when you sign up for Ms Stuart’s newsletter.

In our splintered world, I often find myself railing against social media for spreading hatred and lies and fomenting anger.

And yet, when I consider my long friendship with an author on the other side of the world — I don’t think one can get farther from my home in Canada, to hers in Australia — I laud the wonders of electronic communication which make that possible.

Twenty years ago I picked her name off a registration list for an on-line course. The instructor wanted the students to pair up as a way of making us accountable. I decided to choose someone from far away. She picked me too and for the same reason. We’ve discovered so many commmonalities, apart from the obvious English language heritage. We’re both married. We both love cats. We both attend church. We share similar outlooks on the state of the world. We write and read historical fiction. We belong to romance writing groups.

We do have at least one difference. She is a much faster writer. When the pressure is on she can settle in front of her computer and churn out the words and storyline much, much faster than I can. I envy her on that front. To even things out a bit, I have a great neighbour and she has issues over the back fence. 😊

Over the course of our friendship we have endured a worldwide pandemic, seen a shift in world attitudes, watched our democracies come under threat, grieved at wars in Europe and the Middle East. We’ve seen the weakening of traditional publishing and the explosion of self-publishing in our industry. We’ve confronted the physical ailments associated with aging. And we’ve seen our friendship grow and deepen — all through weekly letters.

Through the power of words I’ve gained a friend oceans and continents away from me. Through the power of words we’ll keep on sharing our thoughts, our troubles and our triumphs. Through the power of words we have a friend to lean on.

Words have great power — good and evil. The maxim, “the pen is mightier than the sword,” still holds true. Like my friend and I, let us all use that power to learn and grow and understand the “other.”

Generation Gap

June 19, 2024 / Alice Valdal

doing homework I didn’t post to this blog last week because I had out-of-town company. In fact, I had out-of-province company. It was wonderful to have family come for a visit — a reminder of the special bond of kinship. I was thrilled to discover my great niece is a reader. A visit to my local book store was a highlight of the trip for her. Her brother was more intrigued by the toy store next door. 🙂 Her choices were all unknown to me. In fact, we didn’t have any book references in common.

Co-incidentally I read an interesting paper at Writer Unboxed on the need to “explain” our use of language. The question was whether the reader would “get” the author’s references. I was astonished to learn that a seasoned author presented draft ms to young critique partner only to find the reader didn’t understand the allusion to women in the 1950’s attending university in order to obtain an MRS. degree. That was such a common conception in my day I simply assumed it was part of our collective conscience. Now I question all the idioms I thought were universal. How many people who hear “David and Goliath” know the Biblical story? If a rogue “meets his Waterloo,” does the average reader understand Napoleon’s defeat at that place?

My aforementioned great-niece is a “tween” and very specific about the books she reads. The Baby-Sitters Club is top of the wish list. She’s also keen on mysteries, however, despite high praise from her mother, grandmother and great-aunt, she refuses to read Nancy Drew!

How will our generations talk to each other if we don’t have the same reference points? If coming generations don’t read the classics like Little Women, or Anne of Green Gables, where will we find common ground for conversation let alone for reading? To be fair, I haven’t rushed off to the YA section of my library in search of Dog Man either.

My book club meets today. The book under discussion involves a different culture and contains many culturally specific words. The author made no attempt to explain these terms to the reader, leaving us with the choice of putting the book down while we hunted up a dictionary, or skipping the unknown word and carrying on with the story. The approach did not resonate with me. I would have preferred that the author make some attempt to describe a piece of clothing rather than merely assign a foreign word and put the reader to the trouble of researching the vocabulary. Again, I must review my own writing for references that may be meaningless to some readers.

It seems authors must always be prepared for new challenges. And we must seek the balance between assuming our readers share our background and education and treating them like preschoolers who must have every word explained.

What do you think? Do you want plentiful explanation in your fiction reading or do you just want to get on with the story?

Jane and the Brand

May 15, 2024 / Alice Valdal

This week my book club meets and we are each bringing a different book by Jane Austen. I chose The Watson’s, which was an unfinished fragment left by Miss Austen when she died. Various members of her family tried to complete the ms using Jane’s notes and her sister’s (Cassandra) recollections. Each of these writers used the original manuscript and then tagged on an ending of his/her own, trying to imitate Jane Austen. The version I read is one completed by John Coates — no relation of the Austen’s — that is a rewrite of the whole book, including the part that Miss Austen left unfinished.

It must have taken considerable confidence to re-write the famous author’s original words, but Coates argues that she left only a rough draft and would have edited it herself if she had ever finished it for publication. The result is seamless. I cannot tell what is original to Austen and what was added by John Coates.

This book was a very enjoyable read, but I felt it hadn’t the depth of Austen’s finished works and lacked the humour and gentle mocking of “society” so wonderfully achieved in the major novels. Still, reading what is essentially a rough draft makes it easier to recognize the main characteristics of a Jane Austen novel.

To use modern terminology, the book follows the Austen “brand.” We have a gaggle of sisters, an ailing father, a great need for husbands, faithless suitors, a worthy but awkward hero, a country ball, gossip, and the many restrictions placed upon young ladies of this age. (If reading about the powerlessness of women of that era, whether rich or poor, doesn’t get your women’s lib passion frothing, you’re missing the point!)

Over the years I’ve read many articles and attended many lectures on “branding.” Often the emphasis is on visual similarity like covers and websites being instantly recognizable as belonging to a particular author. Since Jane Austen’s books were first published, they have gone through many editions and different publishers, so the “look-alike” covers don’t apply. But, I think, her story elements are just as reconizable as production elements like cover-art and author name.

The branding lectures often focus so much on the art, the colours, the fonts, and the back blurb that they overlook what is between the covers. But, when it comes down to it, don’t readers come back to their favourite authors because of the story, the style, the voice, and the reliability of the writer to spin a tale that resonates and satisfies.

Spending my last week in Jane Austen world, I’ve wondered far from the Canadian frontier, and gold prospectors, and building a new country, but it has been fun to take a ” walk on the tame side,” just for a change.

What about you? Are you a confirmed “Janeite?” Do you have a favourite Jane Austen novel? A favourite character? Or are you firmly in the modern world and have no time for picnics and balls and changing your clothes five times a day?

To Love and to Cherish

May 1, 2024 / Alice Valdal

Why do we read romance novels? For most, it is the desire to experience again that rush of first love — the euphoria, the hope, and the passion. Writers who can tap into that moment meet the expectations of the genre and attract readers by the hundreds of thousands.

And why not? Can anything be better than falling in love?

I’ll betray my age, when I say yes, there is something better. There is living and loving throughout life, sharing all the ups and downs, the heartaches and the joys, with a beloved partner. Living the “for better, for worse” part brings a deep contentment that may not be thought of in the excitement of a wedding.

How many twenty-somethings really imagine living together in old age when they blithely promise “in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, so long as we both shall live?” Youth is blessed with a sense of immortality. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the young believe that “it won’t happen to us.” We’ll never need a cane, we’ll never lose our figure, our skin will never wrinkle, our strength will never wane. In this case, denial is a good thing. It makes us take risks, it makes us hope, it keeps the human race trying to make a better world. It keeps the human race alive.

There is a subset in the romance genre called “seasoned romance,” that features older characters as the love interest. Some of these books consider thirty to be “seasoned” but I think they miss the mark. It takes a lot of living to be well and truly seasoned. But what a joy when one reaches that stage of life when the bloom of youth is gone, some dreams have been set aside, some ambitions unrealized, to find that even then, you are cherished by a loving spouse. Someone still sees you as beautiful, someone still thinks an hour in your company better than a week at the carnival, someone will still kiss your hurts and make them better.

I love that word – cherish. It means so much more than love. To cherish to to act, to decide, to care for and to support. Love, as an emotion, is fickle, fleeting and unreliable. Cherish is steadfast.

There is a song, “I”ll Walk Beside You,” that sums up this idea. I can’t listen to it without a tear in my eye. I’ve provided a link to a recording by Kenneth McKeller. Bet you can’t listen to the end without a clutch of your heartstrings.

I’ll Walk Beside You

I’ll walk beside you through the world today
While dreams and songs and flowers bless your way
I’ll look into your eyes and hold your hand
I’ll walk beside you through the golden land

I’ll walk beside you through the world tonight
Beneath the starry skies ablaze with light
Within your soul love’s tender words I’ll hide
I’ll walk beside you through the eventide

I’ll walk beside you through the passing years
Through days of cloud and sunshine, joys and tears
And when the great call comes, the sunset gleams
I’ll walk beside you to the land of dreams.

— Edward Lockton and Alan Murray