Building meaningful relationships today is starting to become a challenge for people. There is this disposable thinking as I like to call it. We become too busy to return a phone call and rely more on virtual relationships than the real-life face-to-face contact that we once learned to rely on. Relationships are important to overall happiness. Even when it involves matters of the heart, we do all we can to put ourselves out there, but what happens when love is lost? This is a question I find myself asking often. There are so many reasons for why relationships end. Divorce, break-ups, even when partners pass on; the feelings involved have to go somewhere. Better yet, how do we cope after it’s over?

Living among many people allows me to hear their stories. I find it to be a privilege when someone is comfortable enough to tell me about their own lost loves. One woman, who I’ll call Jane to protect her identity, told me about her lost love Tom. Again, not his real name, but as she began to tell me the story about Tom; the house that they bought together and their lives together until one day he had passed away. You see what made this story so difficult for me was that Jane failed to tell me that he was killed in an accident. Tom was a well-known boat racer. During a warm up before a race, another boat hit Tom’s boat causing him severe head injuries. Those head injuries lead to his death. Jane never found left again. It has been more than 35-years since Tom had passed away and Jane had never been a relationship again. I wonder to myself, where do those feelings go? Do we just lose the feeling of love altogether?

After many conversations, Jane told me that she just hasn’t loved again. Her one true love in my mind, Jane has come to find life outside of a relationship. Friends, work, and family filled the void in the relationship that Jane could have had with Tom. Jane told me that after Tom had died that she had briefly moved into the house that they had bought together. I couldn’t imagine going through the heartbreak, but I found myself understanding her feelings. We go through life searching for love to fill the void in our lives, when maybe love is just found in living our everyday lives. Maybe Jane will never walk down the aisle, but one thing is for sure. With each passing day that Tom has been gone, she carries with her the love that she has for him and the thought of seeing him one day again. There is so much to live and to experience in this life and that what is truly meant to be…the feeling of holding onto everlasting love.