Like Taking Sand to the Beach

  Prologue – Love After Death Is the human heart large enough to encompass more than one romantic love? There is ample evidence that this is possible, both in the diachronic sense of loving one person after another and in the synchronic sense of having two lovers at the same time. A widows' love indeed involves both aspects. Their love to two people is more complex given the continuing impact of bereavement , even years after the loss. The widow's ongoing relationship and bond to the deceased remains a central aspect in her life. She has to cope not merely with the new situation of loving two men at the same time, but also with the shift in the way she has loved her deceased husband: a shirt from a relationship with a physical companion who provides active support and love to one who is no longer alive and cannot be active in her life. In the romantic ideology, profound love should last forever. The end of love is taken to indicate that it was superficial in the first p...