Jamie accepts his proposal, but her father and Landon’s parents all try to talk him out of it because they think he is doing it only for Jamie’s sake. But he knows that he is doing it for himself because he is so deeply in love with her. His heart has told him that marrying Jamie is the right thing to do. They are married in the Baptist church by Hegbert, with Landon’s father as the best man. The church is full with over two hundred guests that day in March, and even more than that wait outside. Jamie musters her strength and manages to walk down the aisle, supported by her father. She wears the same white dress she wore in the play. As he repeats the wedding vows, Landon knows that this is the most wonderful moment in his life.
The book ends as the narrator returns to the present day, forty years after the wedding. He says he still loves Jamie after all these years, and he still wears the wedding ring. He also says that he now believes in miracles.
Analysis
This marks a further stage in Jamie’s growth in faith. He believes the knowledge that he must marry Jamie is the first time in his life that God has spoken to him directly. He has matured to the point where he can pursue his own course in life, making his own decisions, even when the significant adults in his life do not understand his motivation. He has also shown that the words he speaks to Jamie about love are true, and that he is prepared to live up to them.
In this chapter, both at the beginning and the end, the narrator returns to the frame narrative, speaking once more as a fifty-seven-year-old man looking back on the most significant events of his life. He reveals that the impact that Jamie had on his life has proved to be permanent, and he regards her as an angel who lived what she preached and taught him about the power of forgiveness as he watched the rifts between and within families being healed
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