Wouldn’t we feel elated to know that all those dreamy knights and heavenly princesses, eternal lovers and magical soul mates were true and alive? That a life of love filled with adventure, pureness, and celebration can still be found? Many of us, comfortably accustomed to the unexciting, or hopelessly resigned to the mundane, would downright reject this as an intangible ideology. But The Bridge across Forever is a flash of hope for those fierce romantics who’d always want to believe that there is such a thing as perfection in life and love, for those who trust that the capacity for divine joy and completeness in love can be found. Famed writer Richard Bach’s true life story about “a knight who was dying, and the princess who saved his life”; is one such beautiful autobiographical chronicle of how Richard the wandering knight, found his enchanting liberator Leslie, in his real life relationship with her.

The book begins with Richard’s escapades of airplane barnstorming and his superficial romantic flirtations as a result of his developed distrust for perfect marriages, his intrinsic self centeredness and his conflicting conviction of the existence of a perfect woman.  Shirking from commitments for the fear of being led into an inconsequent and ordinary affair that would lack true love, Richard for the first part of this book writes about himself as lonely and looking – for a completeness with a soul mate (whom he pictures as a woman who could share his prejudices and passions, embrace adventure, laugh like a child, be physically beautiful and supremely self reliant; some one who could find by her independent ways, the road to internal beauty and spiritual growth… and a whole heap more!)  This dream-like image of an unmet woman enraptures his mind, and keeps him restless and wavering all along, until he begins his relationship with actor Leslie Parrish. Their bond grows from a friendship full of lengthy chess games, long conversations, mutual respect and incredible understanding, to a deeper love, when Richard finally realizes that Leslie is the wonderful woman he had waited for all his life. The rest of the book is Richard’s own struggle to surrender his self centeredness and give wholly to the one woman who manifests as a miraculous living form of everything he had dared to imagine.

Shining with her crystal honesty, lovely brightness and womanly intuition Leslie takes Richard to his final journey of giving and commitment, bringing him to actions enormously difficult and unknown to Richard so far, until they both arrive at a destination of united growth and extraordinary wholesomeness. The two pursue a demanding togetherness in which they fight to save the forests, live months in a trailer and strive to plan for a future, with each moment spent joyfully in learning from each other, celebrating their time together and discovering true intimacy.

The Bridge Across forever, gives hope to the kind of people who fear a marriage or commitment that will end in shouting and slamming doors, losing respect and feeling bored, taking for granted and shutting in cages. The course of this book traces that path where two lovers change and grow to enrich, rather than diminish each other. While Richard is resistant to marriage and commitment, erecting solid walls around him to protect his rigid ideologies, and searching for ways to avoid further development, Leslie longs for the richness of a fuller relationship and brings them both to a togetherness grown to full blossom, by softly and tenderly teaching Richard the joys of giving and care. 

The story, like all of Richard Bach’s other stories, is one that illuminates on the idea of life’s soaring possibilities, and encompasses the need to mount past the mundane by crossing previously conceived limits. Here, Bach exemplifies the need to complete our lives by looking for those who are our true soul mates - the single one person in our lives with whom we can entwine perfectly and take steps towards making a glorious union of two souls into one - where the sum of one and one, can be infinity. Bach’s characters are always filled with inspiring ideologies, and clearly reflect his own character that sparkles with freedom and growth.

Interestingly, this radiant love story was adored and greatly inspirational to many people world over, until it was all shunned away as pretentious when the writer’s fairy tale marriage with Leslie Parrish fell apart after 22 years of admired togetherness. His ideologies were questioned, beliefs were mocked and faith was lost. Then Richard genially explained that love transcends the concepts of marriage, physicality and time… Agree or disagree, this book has way too much beauty and hope to let go off for the author’s own discrepancy. It is filled with lovely moments and sincere in wishing you true love. And somewhere along these pages, you are sure to find yourself meeting with the same bright hopes, beautiful dreams and magical possibilities that The Bridge Across Forever is all about.

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