The idiom goes “absence makes the heart grow fonder” (Sextus Propertius) and according to my late mother the next line is” but presence makes the love grow stronger”. Another nugget of received wisdom that appears to contradict itself, but does it? To begin with is fondness and love on equal footing? With two of our Grown Up in stable long distance relationships* it makes me wonder. There’s no doubt that being apart forces the mind to rely on memory to remember the absent other and in that way ease the pain of separation. The Nanci Griffith song tells us that “love in a memory never grows old” and the reason for that is largely because memory, despite what we might like to think, is both selective and subjective. Who, when suffering the absence of a loved…