Nancy Reagan, 1921-2016

We could write at great length of the grace of Nancy Reagan. For she was one of the most graceful first ladies we ever knew. But her grace spoke for itself.

We also could wax poetic about Mrs. Reagan's class. But no stanzas of ours could begin to do her class justice. So we respectfully demur.

What we will opine on, however, is the concept of true love.

“Love” is a word bandied about so nonchalantly these days that it almost has been rendered meaningless. A priceless commodity discounted by shallowness all too often has been rendered valueless.

But never for Nancy and Ronald Reagan. Their marriage of more than half a century was an object lesson in true love and a validation of the recipe that makes it — devotion, loyalty and mutual advocacy. Theirs, in words and in deeds, was the truest of true love stories. We should all aspire to the rich Reagan example.

Long ago wrote English poet A.C. Swinburne in “A Match”:

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf,

Our lives would grow together

In sad or singing weather,Blown fields or flowerful closes,

Green pastures or gray grief.

The true love of Nancy and Ronald Reagan was that match — a match that now will live on in heaven.