Hello on the Month that we celebrate love,
Valentines Day is certainly a mixed bag, albeit something we spend billions of dollars on each year (this year the prediction is 29.1 billion or just shy of 200.00 per person – I did multiple searches including AI). And recently titles like SAD (Singles Awareness Day, which is the 15th), Galentine’s Day from Parks and Recreation, which is the 13th, and even a Palentines Day, also on the 14th to celebrate friendship provide some sense of the significance of how important relationships of any kind are to us as humans, and also a reality that our need to be loved and cared for is central to our humanity. The variety of ways we find ourselves using the term “love” and the breadth of how often it is injected into our language reveals two things, or so it seems. First, love is an essential human quality and something we need for our own well-being; and second, in spite of its profound importance to our humanity, we seldom know what to do with it or how to express it adequately.
Why might I argue such a thing you might ask? Well if we can say we love pizza as quickly as we love our grandmother, might there be an issue? If we can state our love for such a plethora of inanimate items as easily (or perhaps more quickly) as we express our love for someone we have committed our life to, what are we saying? I would argue that we really do not understand either the emotion or the word. Our cavalier usage of something that has such a wide scope of possibilities can cause us to question what love is at its very foundation. For me, I often tell those people for whom I have a deep sense of appreciation, those who have made a significant impact on my life, those who have been kind enough to reveal who they are and with I have reciprocated that vulnerability, that I love them. Is that a fair assessment of this incredible emotion? I do believe it is, but what does it really mean in terms of the idea of loving someone? The complexity of love has more than boggled me for a wide array of reasons. As a person twice divorced, I have found myself more than once asking what it meant to love that person to the degree that I was willing to commit my life to them. And when I (or we) failed both times, was my life that imperfect or was there something more? Certainly there were issues with my actions and my ability to maintain my love for them regardless of what happened.
Earlier today, I saw a post from a former student, whose child is celebrating a first birthday, and her (their) love for their child is unmistakable. The joy, the emotional tie, the reverence they show for their son shines through everything they post. There is what seems to be an unfailing care before self that illustrates the depth of love they have. It is something that gives me hope beyond most things I see in our current world. As someone who never had his own children (and I know I am told and even feel I have had a lot of surrogate children, who have richly blessed me), there is a wistfulness in what I see from those former students who have now become parents. There is a pureness and holiness in the love of a parent for their child I admire. It might be one of the two or three places I believe what I hope love is, demonstrates itself as possible.
The occasion of another Valentines Day as a single person, and there have been decades of them both as a young person and now as an older one, compelled me to ponder when and if I have really understood what it is to genuinely love someone in my life. If is such a significant element of our humanity, what makes it so difficult to find, to maintain, or experience? For me, too often, I believe my hope that I loved someone was an initial infatuation that continued beyond that head-turning, heart-pitterpat moment. For that to occur, there was something beyond the mere attractiveness of the other. For that to make some alteration in my life, I believe there was a sense of morals and values that were similar, compatible, and seeking the same thing. At yet, what I realize is there was too often, and perhaps still is, in spite of my realizing the absurdity of such a hope, that we could continue in life always in love first, regardless the difficulties.
As I consider those in my life, family, friends, and yes, students who were in my classes and have remained in my life, classmates, those I have dated, and yes, two people with whom I have taken wedding vows, when I am honest with myself to the point of finger pointing, if I can call it that, who and how many of them would I say I loved in the way I noted above, in a manner that is indisputable, immeasurable, as unconditional as humanly possible? Or in other words beyond what I perhaps realized myself capable of doing? And I do want to say that there are a number of people if something happened to them I would be devastated. But with whom there was a love that they changed my life, a connection that in spite of time or even physical existence, their influence in my life still exists? I think there are three or four people. And how is it I can say that or narrow it to so few. In terms of categories, one is a relative, one is a former spouse, and two are life-long friends.What is it that allows me to confess, if you will (perhaps appropriate to confess on this Ash Wednesday)? I think it is because I still grieve some aspect of that change that occurred (and some of the changes are easily determined and for one perhaps not as much).
The family member that still influences me to this day (and this is not to lessen other family members in any way) is my Grandmother. I have written about her so many times, and she is a constant thread in this blog. She is even more so a constant in my determining how I act, what I value, how I treat others, and what I believe is appropriate in our world. She, more than anyone, taught me what it is to love, what it is to be loved, which is as important, and how I wanted to try to model love to others. Too often, I believe I have fallen short of imagining that. I remember standing in Graceland Cemetery the day of her funeral, and I sobbed uncontrollably because the person who had imparted such immeasurable love to me was gone. I was not ready for that day (she was only 64), and in someways I have never recovered. I still grieve her. The second person I noted above was a spouse, and it was my second spouse. I often describe it in this manner. If she walked through the door where I was, even today and we have been divorces for 25 years, I would be a basket-case. I was not capable of being the husband she needed (and while I am not sure I could ever be), I made mistakes and some significant ones. And yet, if I ever loved someone in my adult life, she would be that person. And yet, through many years of counseling, I know that our marriage was not healthy from the beginning. And that is a mutual fault. And yet, I grieve that failure. It is important that I realize the depth of the love I had for her, but that also made me incredible fragile, and I was more broken than I knew. I know that the failure of that marriage has had life-long consequence for me. That too is part of the grieving.
The other two people are friends to this day, and for both of them, I am grateful, and will be so to the end of the days. The first friend taught be so much about how I could love, but also how I was unprepared and incapable of loving in a healthy manner. The reasons for that are legion, and yet, decades later, we have a friendship that is precious and genuine. That too is a profound gift. So the grieving is a different kind of grief if you will. It is a realization that love is profound and intense and it is life changing. Today, their insight into me in often beyond what I realize myself, but it is always provided in a sense of deep care and thoughtful love that humbles me. In spite of every different paths, in spite of profound statements, we have learned to respect both the wishes of those we loved and create something that gives me balance and hope. The second person has known me since I first came to the Martin house. We grew up together, and I think it is fair to say, there is a certain element of the infamous “what if?” for both of us. And yet, we went about our lives never matching our emotions to a parallel time that would work. Now we have an incredible friendship that continues to grow in appreciation for the other. While I have traveled and left our neighborhood, she has remained pretty local, that has changed our trajectory in life, and yet we find we have so much more in common than we ever realized as we continue to chat and interact. I know if anything were to happen to her I would grieve her loss almost as much as my grandmother’s. That says a lot. What I have always appreciated was her kindness and beauty; what I have learned as we have aged is how incredibly intelligent and insightful she is. Her questioning of things, much like my own, is unceasing. Her commitment to family is something unparalleled. The other thing I grieve is perhaps that we never found our time frames matching up. One might say that was for the best, and there can be no argument about what never happened.
What I realize is simply that is in the grieving of something I have come to realize that love is possible. I am not sure we understand the profundity of love when we are in it. It’s immensity becomes apparent when it is no longer there or perhaps when it did not happen.
Thanks as always for reading. If you love someone, let them know.
Michael
thewritingprofessor55 