12 Feb 2026
Rev Peter Crumpler, associate minister at St Paul’s Church in Fleetville, celebrates the love that lasts a lifetime…
It’s puzzling that you don’t see many Zimmer frames, wheelchairs or hearing aids on Valentine’s Day cards for sale in the shops around St Albans and district. They mostly seem to focus on young love, hearts and roses.
Young love is wonderful and beautiful, full of optimism and plans and hopes for the future. It’s kept songwriters and poets employed for years.
But love in later life is precious too. It’s a love that has been forged through years of shared experiences and joy, making a home together, maybe raising children together, and perhaps enjoying grandchildren.
It’s a love that’s stood the test of time and is deeper than any shop-bought Valentine’s Day card can describe.
Watching couples who have held hands for decades sitting quietly together is poignant and moving. Especially when one or other, or both, of them is living with dementia or has challenges with their mobility.
That long-term love might be shown by the devoted wife or husband visiting their spouse in a care home each day or sitting for long hours by a hospital bed.
One of the many tragedies of the Covid pandemic was how it separated so many of these lifetime partners, even to the point of death.
As a church minister, when I marry a couple and take them through their wedding vows, I hear them make their lifelong commitments “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part…”
It’s wonderful to see the couple smiling, and enjoying this precious moment, making vows that will, hopefully, span the rest of their lives. I love taking weddings – it’s an immense privilege to be part of a couple’s special day.
I find myself pondering what the future will hold for them. I wonder what shape that lifelong commitment will take, as I pray a blessing on their marriage.
Later in life, hopefully much later, that love will be felt in the raw emotion of bereavement, as one or other partner departs this life, leaving the remaining partner bereft and bewildered. Grief, they say, is the price we pay for love.
“Love is patient. Love is kind.” These familiar words are from the popular wedding reading in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. That patience, that kindness are qualities that can develop over years of marriage.
Just how much patience will be needed in the years ahead is seldom known on the wedding day.
So, this year, as I look at the rows of red or pink Valentine’s Day cards on sale in the shops, I shall look out for cards that have a deeper message.
I’ll seek out cards that celebrate long-term love. Cards that say something about the joys and challenges of growing older together.
