"I will not tell you our love story, because--like all real love stories--it will die with us, as it should." - John Green, The Fault in Our Stars (pg. 259)
The words that followed these ones, in text and in film, were ones that broke me down into a weepy puddle of tears. The words that followed were so emotional and vital to the story, in fact, that I completely forgot about this sentence entirely. I saw the quote online, and after flipping through my copy of the book, lo and behold: there they were, plain as day, existing there beyond my memory the entire time.
The words that followed these ones are ones that I love. But I'm sorry, Hazel; I strongly disagree with you on this front. Because I believe that no story, love-related or not, should ever die.
Stories mean something to us. A big something to us. Just ask someone who grew up reading Harry Potter, or anyone who ever stood in line at a book signing to tell the author how much their book helped them. Ask anyone who's ever related something to their best friend in tears over the phone, or in person with arms and bodies to comfort them. Ask anyone who ever wrote a biography, or read a biography. Ask anyone who grew up believing in fairy tales, anyone who insisted on writing everything down. Ask anyone who has ever related to another person, real or fictional.
Stories change us. They help us. They act as maps and compasses, guiding us through life. We get inspiration from text and from film, motivating us to get up and accomplish things we've only ever dreamed of. The best advice is given to us through stories from those older and wiser, tales of catastrophies and mishaps and giant mistakes that, while cringe-worthy, were never truly regretted. We feed relationships with our stories, our reasons for being who we are. Our best and closest friends know everything because they are there, experiencing it with us, or waiting at the finish line to hear the whole story.
Stories intrigue us. They fuel us. They promote curiosity and creativity and conversation. Stories are meant to be shared. It's why I write, why I'm constantly discovering and experimenting with new mediums. I believe that stories matter.
And in the world of Hazel Grace, a world of asshole writers and miracle drugs and pre-funeral eulogies, she is wrong. Because if their story was not this book in my hand, it would be remembered. It would be held in the minds and hearts of her family, and the family of Augustus Waters, and their friend Isaac. It would be held in the mind of Van Houten, the drunken author, and his assistant who helped them experience so much. They would be remembered by the doctors who treated them, the teachers who taught them. Their love story may be broken, split between witnesses, comprised only of pieces that don't quite fit to make the whole...but it would still be there.
And someday, it would be told, as best as it could be, in any way possible.
It only takes one person to remember a story. It only takes one person to pass it on, down the line. It's how legends are born, how urban myths are created, how cultures thrive.
Real love stories do not die with the lovers, nor should they. They are left to simmer, to grow and develop, until they are ripe and ready to be told. And then they are.
Until later,
- Justyne
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