Imaginary Lovers and Romance

Three older women stand in the floral department of Kroger, buying left over Valentine's flowers. I am one of them. We laugh at ourselves.  Yesterday I saw a wonderful story of a couple married 70 years. They were holding hands. He said he gave her candy for Valentine's and she said she gave him a kiss, just want he wanted. I can't remember ever seeing my parents demonstrate one moment of romantic love. No flowers, perfume, boxes of chocolates. I have always blamed this on my mother's propensity to complain very openly about her asthma, allergies, weight.  But sometimes  I wonder about that.  While I was growing up my mother loved her "shows".  The soaps that dominated daytime television. I can't tell you the number of times she "forgot" to pick me up at school, delivery the cupcakes for a party or run an errand for me because she was either watching her shows or terribly depressed about the brain tumor, weight gain and/or impending divorce of one of her "ladies".  All of which could occur on any given day/to the same person/ in an hour's span. When in her late 80s, a series of small stokes forced my Mother to a nursing home for her safety, she began to live the life she had witnessed in her shows.  Although she had never exhibited the desire or even the slighest inclination to romance, she found it the nursing home, in the form of her imaginary lover, Robert. He truly must have been the most romantic man ever.  Mother's world was a whirl of flowers, love songs, and lavish attention and gifts.  When Mother couldn't decide between the Cadillac and the Lincoln Robert wanted to buy her, he insisted she take both.  Once when I came to visit, Mother sat starting in wonder at her ceiling. Lifting her finger she pointed up and moved with great care her head slowly around. "Look", she said, " Just look at what he's done now.  Written I love you, I love you, I love all around the room".  I always thought she was just living the stories, imaging all sorts of accidents and incidents that would occur weekly on the soaps.  But now I wonder if it had not been the lure of the romance that Mother loved.  On several occasions, Robert passed away in the most horrifying and tragic of circumstances and Mother played the grieving widow to the hilt.  But always the love over came the rattlesnake bite or the automobile accident, and Robert returned from the grave, ever devoted and generous. Maybe instead of the drama, it was the romance that brought him back.  All those years Mother may have wanted to complain about flowers and chocolate and didn't get the chance. A few weeks before she passed away, I found her in a huff when I came into her room.  I asked what was wrong and she looked at me with one of her famous indignant looks. She asked me if  I was interested in Robert.  I immediately told her no and reminded her that I was married and very happy.  She nodded and seemed to forget her jealousy and the threat to her happiness. Just before leaving her though, I did ask about the age difference that she had so often had mentioned to me. You see, Mother said that Robert, despite several funerals, death in both war and peace and varied world adventures was only 47.  Almost half my mother's age.  Mother laughed slightly at my lack of worldliness and rolled her eyes in the most coquettish of ways.  "Well", she said "We don't plan to have children".  Maybe romance never dies. At least not in our imaginations.