Explains me, a little

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. -Sonnet 116, Shakespeare

Imagine having your beloved, on bended knee, reciting this to you after a lovely night out. You've been dating a couple months, and it's April 1st. 
My poor father, he got laughed at as he held her hand, pouring his heart out. She thought it was a joke; he was serious.  He was proposing, and was crushed at her reaction. Lucky for him, my mother eventually came around a few months later... and they were married in early October.
I grew up hearing the story and the sonnet... and at one point, had it memorized.  I remember nights, instead of 'Goodnight, Moon', my father read Poe or Shakespeare to me.
It helps to explain how big of a nerd I am.
It wasn't until I was a teenager that I understood the meaning of the sonnet he chose to woo my mom.  Seeing them as their adult child, I can still feel the adoration he has for her.
It amazes me.
And it makes me realize that the ability he has to feel that much, for so long, is something he has somehow passed on to me. It's one of those things I look forward to having tested, to see if I am right.
Falling in love is easy... staying in love... that takes work.  My father's work ethic has never been questioned. It's another trait he passed on to all of the kids. But his intensity came with a price.
See, I don't remember my parents ever having parties or company come over to play games or socialize. My mother was a social butterfly (Two had to have gotten that trait from somewhere), but my father has always been content to just have her and the kids around. His world revolves around her. I know, as morbid as it may seem, that when she goes, he will be very shortly behind her. He cannot function without her, nor will he entertain the idea.
That's too intense for me. But I can see how he got that way. I know my mother is his first real love, and he married her.  I tried to imagine if I had followed the same path, if I would be the same. Then again, having known heartache, it's hard to imagine. But for Three, she might have this possibility...
In a way, I can accurately say that it's the way I approach my friendships.  I have kept long term buds, and through the years have not lost my feelings for them. I never tried to change them, took them for who they are and who they want to be.  I've had people who tried to get in the way and break the ties I made with them, but have realized it just isn't going to happen. Poor buds... you have a life sentence of me giving a shit and popping up sporatically.

For me... I only hope that what I read into the quote, I can offer to someone, someday.  Just not on April Fools.