Heterosexual love is rarely praised anymore, but Kim’s comment about why he cares for his wife was as beautiful and as real as any Shakespearean sonnet.After the show, I told my parents what he’d said, because after 62 years married, my dad cares for my mum the same way. “That’s what I always tell them,” Dad said.“They’re always calling me your mum’s carer, and I always reply, ‘I’m not her carer — I’m her husband.’”
Years ago, these men pledged to love their women, their wives, in sickness and in health. I guess to some men — like Kim, my father, and many others — they actually meant what they said when they made this vow, “I do.”But instead of celebrating these great heterosexual lovers, we have a court system primed to rip these men from their families and a media that loves to label them “toxic.”Well, when we lose the ability to value real love — that tenacious love stripped down to its core union, which still holds two hearts together despite the storms of hardship and loss — then perhaps it’s time for all of us to pause, look into the private mirror hiding in our souls, and ask:“Mirror, mirror in my soul, in the time I have left in this light, is there someone out there I can truly love?”Michael