Crazy things we do for love

Jacob was so in love that he agreed to work for seven years for Laban so he can marry his daughter Rachel, but those seven years "seemed to him but a few days"! If that was crazy, crazier was when after the seven years, Laban by trickery gave him the wrong woman - the big sister of the woman he was in love with, and Jacob didn't strangle him but agreed to work another seven years to get the real apple of his eye. So he toiled a whopping 14 years because of his blinding love for Rachel!

My friend who is more experienced in matters of love says Jacob's love for Rachel was rare. "If Rachel was 25 years when Jacob first saw her it means he married her when she was 39; an age when women are edging closer to menopause," says my friend. "To put it crudely, Jacob fell in love with a steaming hot young woman and was made to wait by the craftiness of her father that by the time he married her she was an 'old woman'! That means his love for Rachel went deep like the roots of an oak tree; he did not walk by natural senses."

Well, if you thought waiting for 14 years to marry the love of your life is long, what do you say about Florentina who waited for 51 years, 9 months and 4 days before destiny finally delivered the woman of his life into his arms! He had first fallen in love with the dashing Fermina when they were both still young  but as he was penniless Fermina was married off to a rich and famous doctor and he decided to wait for her husband to die so he can have his chance!

Much as the later case is a fictional creation by Garcia Marquez in his novel Love in the Time of Cholera, it teaches us, together with the story of Jacob and Rachel, that love is so special that we should be willing to pay any price for it. Then we shall live the remaining years of our lives happier than those who walked away from the obstacles.