Enduring Love

That Romantic Relationship

I was reminded of the notion of enduring love on Oct. 29th, my parents’ anniversary. My father, an incurable romantic who spouted poetry from the great masters, fell deeply in love with my mother, a farm girl. She had a lively spirit and a determination to succeed in a climate that wasn’t always hospitable to Ukrainian immigrants.

They fell in love at the end of the 1930s after meeting at a community dance on the Manitoba prairies, and the rest, as they say, is history. They married in 1938, near the tail end of the Great Depression when Dad was 28, and Mom was 23. Jobs were scarce, and Dad was unemployed. The future looked bleak. Her family was hanging on to their farm by a thread, but they took him on as their hired man—he worked for food and shelter. Mom and Dad were poor in prospects but not poor in love.

They’re both long gone but the story of how they met and fell in love is chronicled in the second and third book of Lukia’s Family Saga trilogy. I’d written it as historical fiction, but it’s true life fiction based on my mother’s wonderful oral storytelling.

Peter and Dolly Klewchuk (Mom and Dad)

During my generation, the 60s, people married young. We were teens in the 1950s, when many found their financial footing after World War II. Our parents prospered and we enjoyed the benefits. I know a number of couples who married their high school sweethearts.

I met my husband at university. Though we were in different faculties, we crossed paths on the way to our classes, and he remembers our eyes meeting when I was sitting in the cafeteria at St. Paul’s College, waiting for my car pool driver to show up. He got my phone number from one of the guys in my car pool and again, the rest is history.

Love Today

Though we have many more ways to meet someone today with whom we can develop an enduring love, there are new obstacles, ones previous generations didn’t foresee or have to deal with. And values have changed as well. Women have become more independent; more women than men are graduating from university today. They can share the financial load, but they expect the man to at least contribute. As for sex, the decision to “go all the way” before marriage (without shame) or to explore one’s sexuality is now equally available to both men and women—unlike in my day, or my mother’s. Those who choose “hook-ups” invariably skip romance. It’s hard to have that romantic lead-up, if you jump to the act immediately. Emotional fulfilment suffers as well.

In an article for The Atlantic on March 10th, Faith Hill shared the results of a poll taken for the Survey Center of American Life. It showed the “56% of Gen Z adults said they’d been in a romantic relationship…during their teen years, compared with 76% of Gen Yers & 78% per cent of Baby Boomers.” That’s a significant drop.

A reminder for the older generation: Gen Z are those born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Yers are those born between 1965 and 1980, and Baby Boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964. No statistics were given in the article on Millenials who were born between 1981 and 1996.

So, what explains this drop? Much of the drop in romantic entanglements can be attributed to the growth of social media and its influence in our lives. No matter where I go, whether it’s to the theatre, or on the ferry, or to a restaurant, anyone with any spare time seems to be glued to their devices. That opportunity for meeting someone’s eyes across the room has faded considerably.

And who doesn’t need or want that enduring love? But today, you have to work harder to get attention. Our social media—Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Blue Sky, LinkedIn, and more—as well as Google, Bing, and the like keep our faces down and indoors and out of reach. It’s a worldwide addiction. It’s seductive. It robs us of our time and what’s worse, of those important social connections.

Today, many meet the love of their life online, which is understandable. Unless you get out of the house and find that special someone at work or at a community event or somewhere where you aren’t glued to your device, chances of meeting anyone of romantic interest are slim.

Romantic Stories

Romance is still the highest selling genre of all books, which tells you something. We crave it. It’s natural.

As for models of behaviour in films, previous generations were exposed to fabulously romantic movies. None of the actors were shown doing the sexual act, even though viewers knew that when they saw “the end” credit on the screen, the couple were headed in that direction. Instead, they were shown getting to know one another. Today, couples onscreen are shown copulating before they even discover who they’re doing it with. It’s graphic; it’s titillating for sure, but it’s not romantic, and in most cases, it doesn’t lead to a lasting, loving relationship.

However, there are some screenwriters who’ve found the romantic formula, and as a result, have ended up with huge hits for Netflix. Bridgerton, an imaginative period series, provides both romance and an erotic thrill with a story about a couple falling in love, and ending up in bed together. The South Korean series, Crash Landing on You, hits it out of the park as a slow-burn romance. Spoiler alert: No Graphic Sex. And in both series, romance leads to enduring love.

Since I grew up on love stories—my mother listened to them on the radio—it wasn’t surprising that my first novel A Cry from the Deep was a love story, one that spanned generations. I went on to write other novels, but that one was especially satisfying.

What I’m Reading

I just finished a couple of wonderful books: Floating in my Mother’s Palm, by Ursula Hegi, about a young girl growing up in the 1950s, postwar Germany; and Dancer by Colum McCann, about Rudolph Nureyev, his life, going from poverty in Soviet Russia to stardom as a ballet dancer on the world stage.

Next is Being Different by Ada Glustein about growing up as a Jewish immigrant in Canada after World War II.

What I’m Writing Now

I’m working on a new novel (more later)—not a love story, more about broken hearts.

And I’ve sent my collection of short stories off to my editor. I’ve also written my book cover designer and asked him to come up with some possible covers.

Though this collection is a work of fiction, it’s based on what I know and what I experienced. It consists of two novellas and thirteen short stories about life in a rooming house—Ukrainian landladies, their families, and their tenants in 1940s and 1950s Winnipeg, Manitoba. An upstairs-downstairs account of that life—some real, some imagined—but no royalty involved.

This book is dear to my heart because I grew up in rooming houses. I lived in one—actually I lived in three different ones—from the time I was born until I got married.

The red brick one has Mom, Dad and our two daughters.

Initially, I struggled to find a title for my collection of short stories. I thought of Rooming House, Rooms to Rent, and Rooms to Let (which was what I remember my father printing on a sign to hang in our living room window), but there were already a number of books with those titles.

So, I asked A.I. for help. And surprisingly it came up with some titles I hadn’t thought of: The Smell of Cabbage and The Taste of Borscht. Both good contenders, but I was worried readers might think they were cookbooks. (A side note: I just had my hand slapped, my brain poked, my shoulder tapped by a dear friend asking—why didn’t you ask your writers’ group first for suggestions? True enough, because we meet every two weeks, so I could’ve, should’ve…Next time…or it’s not too late :))

I settled on A House of Strangers. I hope to have the book launched sometime in 2026.