What’s the Love You Forever book really about?
Though the message in this story and the song seems pretty clear, it’s probably not about what you think. It is actually inspired by the author’s two stillborn babies…thus the “my baby you’ll be” part.
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Munsch shared this statement on his website:
I made that up after my wife and I had two babies born dead. The song was my song to my dead babies. For a long time I had it in my head and I couldn’t even sing it because every time I tried to sing it I cried. It was very strange having a song in my head that I couldn’t sing.
For a long time it was just a song, but one day, while telling stories at a big theatre at the University of Guelph, it occurred to me that I might be able to make a story around the song.
Out popped Love You Forever, pretty much the way it is in the book.
Wow. It’s amazing that this explanation coming out 30 years later can totally alter the meaning of this book. Yet in a sense, it’s all the same—perhaps that’s why this timeless tale has lived on.
On the face of it, the story seems to be about a mom who who will never stop loving her son as big as he grows or as long as he lives, but really, it’s the same for stillborn babies and miscarriages. Just because they were taken to heaven early, doesn’t mean their parents’ love died along with their flesh. In the same way, they will be loved forever, long after they’re gone.
So for the big boys, the baby girls and the little angels in heaven, this tune will remain forever true:
I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.
Now, those are 18 beautiful words worth remembering for always. ❤
