15 Feb 2026 3 min read love

Perennial Blooms: on Love the Day after Valentine's Day

by Jody Frank

I was sitting here thinking about the kinds of love—how no matter what the movies try to sell us, nobody can make it on eros alone.

The older I get, the more I appreciate love in all its life-affirming forms. It seems almost miraculous that we flawed, cantankerous humans manage it. Relationships that withstand the test of time are the biggest wonders of all.

Last week I shared Galan and Solmaz's story, which is at its beginning. Montana and Bill’s story began just as romantically in a different country almost 40 years ago. Back in the late 1980s, they were students with a shared passion for archaeology. She was studying archaeology at Tel Aviv University and was also the photographer for the department. He was a non-Jewish American who had come from NYC to work on an excavation one summer. They clicked...and still do. You can read their story in the post "The Flower in My Garden" on my old blog.

young, attractive couple sitting outdoors together in the 1980s — Montana and Bill in the 80s

In the spirit of Bread and Stories, I asked Montana last week if there was a memorable dish that she associated with the beginning of their relationship. She said that the first night she cooked dinner for Bill, she made a dish suggested by a Hungarian relative. They were in Israel at the time, and she was excited to have something to make that was easy and affordable.

Here is a recipe for that potato dish, rakott krumpli. (Montana omitted the sausage.)

It looks tasty, but here's the funny thing: much later, Bill confessed that he really didn't like it very much. He did, however, appreciate that she made it for him. In decades of marriage, parenthood, workaday life, and world travel, I imagine they've had many such moments when it was the caring that mattered more than the particular form it took.

I was sitting here thinking about the kinds of love—how no matter what the movies try to sell us, nobody can make it on eros alone. If our relationships and communities are to withstand the test of time, we need agape, "to will the good of another," and philia, "friendship between equals." (Here in America, we need them more desperately than ever.) Then a message from my old friend Marcia popped up, and her words and their poignant context said everything.

Recently, Marcia and her family suffered an unimaginable loss: her brother was struck by a car and killed. Today she wrote to say she was getting a memorial bench for him at an azalea garden. He was a big fan of Emanuel Swedenborg, an Enlightenment-era Swedish polymath who experienced a spiritual awakening in his 50s. So here are the words that will be on a plaque among the flowers:

"Love is the life of humanity."
"A life of kindness is the primary meaning of divine worship."
--Emanuel Swedenborg

Marcia's brilliant, compassionate brother was also a gourmet foodie who had a favorite comfort food: moussaka. It looks like the perfect thing to make in this last cold month before the flowers start to bloom.