A Love Like Henry and Clare's

I just finished watching the Time Traveler's Wife with a couple of my girlfriends. That movie ALWAYS gets to me, which I'm sure is no surprise.

The question I am left with each time I watch it is "is a love like that worth the complete and utter heartbreak that comes with it?" True, it is a movie, and chances are there aren't actual time travelers out there, but is there a love that great and that strong? Possibly. I'd like to think so, regardless of the doubts reality shoves in my face. At the end of the movie (SPOILER ALERT) Clare tells the soon-to-be-dead Henry that she wouldn't change a thing. Really? Given the choice, she would choose to spend the short amount of time with the love of her life, to lose him at the young age of 40 something, and live the rest of her days without him? For romance's sake I love that this is how she feels in the movie, but in reality can this be true? How could you go on living having lost a love that grand and utterly life changing? Wouldn't that be intolerable? And it's romantic to think that she goes on and stays strong for their daughter and maybe I should just leave it at that. Of course my mind rarely does the sensible thing, which would be to stop thinking. 

My heart breaks every time I watch Clare run to Henry in the meadow during that final scene. How would I feel if the love of my life, the man I cherished and lived for, had come to visit me four years after he had died? Would it be a blessing? A miracle even? Or would it be torture? Of course in the film it was seen as a blessing. A sort of final goodbye, as far as the audience knows anyway. But wouldn't it also bring up all of the emotions of loss once he disappeared again? Though those last few moments with him would be sweet and filled with joy, it would once again come to an end as he left forever. How could you bear that?

Of course any feminists reading this are probably rolling their eyes at me. I can just hear the comments now "Women are strong. We don't need a man to give our life purpose. We don't need men at all." BLAH BLAH BLAH. Sorry... I'm not antifeminist... but I guess I am a bit traditional, a bit too romantic maybe. I want to believe in the life changing love that you can't live without once you've felt it's presence. So I guess there's my answer. I wouldn't change a thing either if I where in Clare's position. I think the love is worth the pain. Because I want that love that defies all odds. That love that gives life purpose even on the darkest, saddest days.