The Lost Wife

My friend picked up this book while in Prague over the summer. Apparently, they have book exchanges in certain touristy areas where you can leave a book you have and take a book with you. Coincidentally, The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman is partially set in Prague. She loved the book, and lent it to me to read. 

The basic idea of the book revolves around the Holocaust. A newly married Jewish couple separates when Josef, the husband, secures a visa to go to America. He desperately wants his wife, Lenka, to come with him, but she refuses, staying behind with her family hoping that Josef can obtain visas for all of them.

The book covers their heart wrenching 62 years of separation, in which both believe the other to be dead. Married, widowed, remarried, rewidowed. And yet, they both meet, coincidentally, years later.

Once I started this book, I could not put it down, desperate to learn more about the love of Josef and Lenka. I was struck by the loyalty they displayed to each other. Despite years of separation and their other lives, Josef and Lenka's love never died.

This love story is so much more powerful than the fast-paced, Tinder-based society we live in today. No social media connected the two lovers; they had nothing but their thoughts and memories of each other. How beautiful that the love of Josef and Lenka could span generations without even seeing each other, even conquering supposed death, It makes me reevaluate the empty promises and overwhelming need for connection in our society.

Love often appears to be a dispensable aspect of life, and while we may be able to live without it, life gains purpose with love. One of last Sunday's readings came from Saint Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, and it perfectly embodies the selfless aspect of love.

"If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. 

And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.

For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.

At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. 

So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:1-13).

I long for a return to this love of the past - the courtship, the trust, and the loyalty. Hopefully, the advent of social media has not brought about the demise of true love; some days, it seems as though it has irreparably damaged relationships.

Perhaps, we can all bring a bit of old-fashioned love into our lives if we put down our phones and look around.