Is Love a Tragedy?

I’m working hard on my science fiction novel and getting to the part where my hero is going to start falling for his heroine.  At the same time, I’m thinking about my next novel, which will be a contemporary romance.  All this has got me thinking about love.

Will I fall in love again?  Do I want to? It’s all just theoretical right now, because I still love Hal; I feel it every day, even though he’s gone. Even if there were someone I could love and who could love me, I don’t want to love anyone else right now, and probably not for a long time yet.  But the real question is whether I would ever want to be in love again.

What I’ve learned from losing Hal is that even if everything goes right and you find the person you want to be with the rest of your life, what you end up with is this:  Your most generous, most loving wish is that your loved one die first so that person can be spared the pain of having to go on without you.  What a sad, tragic thing love ultimately is.