An Ever-Fixed Mark

We romance writers write a lot about love, which of course most everyone scorns as romantic sap, pap, sentimentality, all that.

As if all of that was bad. Puhleeze. It's a hell of a lot better than violence, evil, hatred, and despair. Give me sentimental pap any day over the next betrayal, the next drive-by shooting, the next drug overdose. We romance writers know about that stuff. We read all about it. Many of us have had to deal with it.

But we still hold onto hope, and of course love. Especially love. Because the truth is, love is the strongest thing there is.

Ooh, oooh, Karen, you are SUCH a Pollyanna!

Damn straight I am, and me and Pollyanna are right, too. We're backed up by such greats as Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and many, many others of such ilk. I remember Jesus was really big on the love issue, and not so hot on the violence and hatred thing. People who are really connected to God tend to be that way, and frankly I think the way people tend to take the "Reverend" title off the name of Martin Luther King is not a good thing, because it diminishes his roots, where he came from. It's good to remember where people come from, because there's a lot to be learned from the path they walk, where they left traces of the love they had to give.

Let me tell you something I know about. Let's say you have someone who is in great pain, someone who is dying of a slow, terrible disease. As his loved ones gather around him, the nurses administer the pain medication so that his passing will be "comfortable"--and believe you me, it's never comfortable, it only takes the edge off the ever-present pain. And yet, through the drug, through the terrible pain, this person manages to look at those he loves and says, "I love you." Those are the words he says, over and over again, and you know it's true. My dad said this before he died, and I'm sure some of you know of others who said it before they died.

Now why is it that this person says these words? We're talking major pain here. We're talking impending death. What most of us would think are the Big Ticket Items of Life. But this person chooses to talk of love.

This is because to this person, love is more important than pain. It's more important than impending death. There are times you can't do anything about the pain you have or the pain someone else has. You sure as hell can't do anything about death. We all die. We don't have a choice about these things. Pain and death are a fact of life.

But you can do a lot about love. You can choose to love, you can choose to tell those you love that you love them. The will to love is so strong, that once you have given it, you want to give it again, even through pain, even through impending death. Getting love is a pretty grand thing, too.

Many years ago, I met a woman who told me she didn't want to be in a relationship with anyone, because it would be too painful when that person died or left her. It would be painful for the person who loved her if she died or left. Best not to love at all. This woman didn't even have a pet, no dog, no cat, not even a plastic one, I'm sure. I think I told her that I was sorry she felt like that. I felt really sad that she wouldn't experience love, that she'd be lonely all her life, but wow, she had a point, to love and to lose is very painful.

More than a decade later, I thought of that woman again and I thought, what a chickenshit. I tell you, the older I get, the less patience I seem to have for people, it's terrible. (Not.) A few more years later--today, in fact--I thought about her again, and I still think she's chickenshit.

Let's look at this logically. (1) We all die. (2) We all feel pain, both physically and emotionally. (3) Both 1 and 2 are unavoidable. Proof? Name one person who has never experienced either physical or emotional pain of any kind. I dare ya.

Given the above, we still have choices about (1) how we die--and I don't really mean what we die of, but rather how we conduct ourselves, and (2) the some of the kinds of pain we will feel and how we'll respond to it.

So I have to ask you: given that you will die, and that you will feel pain of some kind, would you prefer to go through pain and death never having experienced the joy of love even for a moment, or experienced it even for the space of a day?

Think carefully. Two choices, both of which have pain and most certainly death at the end. One has experienced the joy of love. The other has not.

I'm sad to say that there will be more than a few people who will choose Door Number Two, like that chickenshit woman. She was too afraid to reach out for love, to reach out for the joy. I won't deny it takes courage--or naivete!--to love. It's never anger or hatred that keeps us from love, it's always fear. And I have to say, those who claim that only the naive dare love and love often, are probably in the fear camp. I'd rather be naive than a chickenshit, and frankly at the age of 40-something, I think I have got over most of my naivete, and hopefully most of my fear, thought that Fear-Girl, she is a sneaky thing and can think of all sorts of reasons why I Can't, and Shouldn't, and Won't.

However, I'm in on the Pollyanna deal, so I choose the life with love in it, fear or no fear. I'm all over the love thang, I'm seizing life with both hands and wrapping the bow-ties of love over that whole big package. And on my deathbed, I'm going to look at my loved ones--or what the heck, anyone who happens to be nearby--and say, "I love you."

At the very least, it'll freak someone out, and I'll have a good chuckle before I go. :-)

--Karen H.