by Telly Gonzaga-Ocampo
Can there be a sequel to a love story?
The love story I’m referring to is the one that was developed in the movie of the same title, Love Story. That was a movie in cinemascope in the mid sixties. It was also serialized in a magazine and it was a kind of story that touched our hearts and the young minds during our days.
Love Story is a movie about dreaming of love that is forever; about how a man and a woman sacrificed the luxuries of life for the sake of the beloved. The theme song of the movie has the following lines:
Where do I begin
To tell the story of how great a love can be
The sweet love story that is older than the sea
The simple truth about the love she brings to me
Where do I start
With her first hello
She gave new meaning to this empty world of mine
There’d never be another love, another time
She came into my life and made the living fine
She fills my heart
She fills my heart with very special things
With angels’ songs, with wild imaginings
She fills my soul with so much love
That anywhere I go I’m never lonely
With her around, who could be lonely
I reach for her hand, it’s always thereHow long does it last
Can love be measured by the hours in a day
I have no answers now but this much I can say
I know I’ll need her ’til the stars all burn away
And she’ll be there
In the movie, the lyrics of the theme song depict the kind of love between Jennifer “Jenny” Cavilleril (Ali Macgraw) and Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O’Neal). Written by Erich Segal, “Love Story” is a 1970 American romantic tragedy believed to be one of the highest-grossing films of all time. It was followed by a sequel, Oliver’s Story (1978), starring O’Neal with Candice Bergen.
Oliver, who belongs to an American upper-class family attends Harvard College. Here, he meets another student, Jennifer “Jenny” Cavilleri, a smart, brilliant lady belonging to the working-class. They fall in love and don’t consider economic status as a barrier to a beautiful relationship. She accepts his marriage proposal, and both go to the Barrett mansion to meet his parents. The Barrett parents are not impressed of Jenny. Despite the father’s threat that Oliver’s financial support will be cut off, both Oliver and Jenny still get married.
In their marriage, Jenny works as a teacher – without the support of Oliver’s father for his studies. But Oliver graduates third in his Law Class class and takes a position at a respectable New York City law outfit. As Oliver and Jenny want to start a family, Jenny undergoes some medical tests but still, fails to conceive. Instead, Oliver is told, without Jenny’s knowledge, that she is terminally ill. He keeps what he knows as a secret, but Jenny finds out the truth in spite of Oliver’s attempts to hide it.
Oliver requests money from his estranged father to pay for Jenny’s cancer therapy. His father asks if he has “gotten a girl in trouble”. Oliver says yes, and his father writes a check.
Jenny, with the help of her father arranges, ahead of time, her funeral services from her hospital bed as she knows that she is dying of cancer. Then, she expresses her last wish to Oliver: for Oliver to embrace her tightly as she dies.
With a very heavy heart, Oliver leaves the hospital and meets his father outside who rushes to the hospital upon knowing the condition of Jenny. The father meets Oliver just in time for Oliver to tell his dad, that “Jenny’s dead.” His father apologizes for what happened and says “I’m sorry.” Oliver answers with a line that has become a favorite of many until now: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” This was a line Jenny had told Oliver before her death.
With this kind of story, it’s nice to feel that one is falling in love – for and in a lifetime.
That’s why I want the sequel.
