He used to amble up and down the hill outside our house when we first moved here. His jacket never fitted him properly as if it were weighted down in one pocket, his head was always tilted to his right as he walked and he never smiled. He barely acknowledged anyone he hadn’t been brought up with but when he did he sounded cheerful enough, somewhat helpful.
I learned after he died and was buried that he had been broken by his wife who had an affair with another man and told him she was leaving. I know we are used to seeing love on film these days, and endlessly reading about it in cheap books striving after its perfection and hoping for its gifts in our lives. But he was an ordinary countryman. He never set the world on fire, he never left the parish in which he was born, he knew some of the roads from before they were set down and he probably never had an original idea in his life.
But love shortened his life.
We are all capable of deep love with all its twists and turns. You don’t have to be any kind of hero to be touched by greatness.
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