 True love
Sit, sit. Let me tell you a story. It's a long one, so get comfy. (If you don't read it all, don't reply. I'm asking nicely.)
Nearly twenty years ago, a married couple with a seven-year-old son divorced. They tried to explain to him what was going to happen; of course, he didn't understand. That was ok, though. His father moved out, but they were together every weekend. It really wasn't much different than normal, since his father was a bus driver for the city and often had odd hours that either sent him to bed very early or kept him away until after the child had gone to sleep himself.
His mother became the primary caretaker. She was always a presence, enough to keep him in line with little actual discipline necessary, but never threatening, uncaring, or overly emotional. She never let him see it when she struggled to care for him if she could help it, and even the rare slips were small (for example, if he was at the store with her and saw her paying the bill with food stamps or some other form of government aid).
He grew up, and she grew older, with him always as the focus of her life. It made him uncomfortable sometimes when he had moments of realization as to just how important he was to her, but it was as it was. She never sought out another man to be part of her life, nor did she care to find one. Her son was enough.
After he moved out, he spent a long time without seeing much of her. She said little about it, save making attempts to come over and help him clean his room (always denied). He had to assert his independence from Mom and home, and even though he understood that this was the impetus behind saying no to her and could have consciously said yes, it took him a full year to become comfortable with seeing her on a fairly regular basis.
As months continued to pass, they settled into a routine. Once a week, he would go to her house for dinner, where they would eat and talk. Sometimes they would voyage afar for fine dining- preferably hot-as-fuck wings- but it changed little of the interaction. She would talk about Grandma and work, he would talk about.. whatever. Sometimes, if her job came up, so would those whose social work cases she dealt with.
One day, she brought to light the plight of an older, Native American gentleman by the name of- I am not kidding- Harrison Ford. Harrison had both legs amputated above the knees due to illness. He remained strong and virile in the upper body, but even with good artificial legs he required either a walker or wheelchair to get around, which limited him severely. His family was dysfunctional to the point where he couldn't rely on them for assistance. He had the will to be on his own, if not the means, a quality which she saw little of in the corporate universe in which she labored.
So the social worker's son began to hear about the ways in which she would help Harrison with his errands, mail checks for him to make sure his bills were paid, and tried her damndest to get him into the best facilities Medicare would allow him to afford. He also heard the occasional tale- amusing at the time- about how this older gentleman would often ask his mother if she ever thought about getting remarried. She would always say the answer was no, no, and given past history, there was little reason to doubt it would stay that way.
Then the tune changed. She was thinking about it. This gave her son pause, but only for a moment. She waited patiently for him to answer- she always waited patiently for him to do anything he needed to do- and his reply came:
"Okay."
What reason did he have to think ill of the situation? If his mother erred in any consistent way, it was in her unintentional resistance to change. She didn't hate it; she simply didn't often do it. The effect this man had on her must have been astounding, or to be more precise, astoundingly positive. So, in his method of extreme understatement, he offered his blessing to whatever she decided to do and thought little more of it. She would tell him anything he needed to know, as she had always done. Her son was still her priority.
Several weeks passed. He proceeded to her house for another dinner, though later than usual, and over a steaming pan of barbecue ribs she told him that Harrison had been in the emergency room. His kidneys were becoming problematic, and dialysis would likely be required in the near future. She worried about his health, doubly so in the light of her recent agreement to marry him, but her son gently reminded her that she had described him as quite the "tough old bastard"- it was paraphrased- in an attempt to allay her fears.
After all, though they had never met, the descriptions were ample; he probably knew as much about Harrison as some people do about their close friends. The man had, in 78 years, left the reservation as a stowaway on a freight train; joined the Army; went AWOL and landed in the brig for six months; hustled people at pool and cards; and so on and so forth. He was the kind of man nobody fucked with, who expected everything out of you and grew greatly irritated if he didn't get it; but if he did, he accorded you the kind of respect most people are incapable of giving. Yes, he fucked up with his family, but growing older made him realize his errors, and he was forever saddened by the fact he could never fully win them back.
In other words, he had an iron will and someone to care for, a combination he hadn't possessed in decades. What the fuck are a couple of malfunctioning kidneys to such a man?
The answer: Not much.
A heart attack is a different story.
This evening, I witnessed a grown woman of the rarest, strongest kind become wracked with sobs while cradling the head of a man in his coffin, a man she had only been with for approximately six months. His entire family had gathered at the funeral home for the wake and prayer service, but she was the focal point of the entire affair, such was her importance in his life at the end. She had never, ever felt lonely until she met him; now, she remembers what it's like to be drawn to the highest of highs- in fact, I have to wonder if she had ever felt this way, even about my father- and I can say that for the first time I've seen someone's spirit plummet through the earth.
For better or worse, that's love. That's what it's all about, and that is the risk you take- and you do take it, no matter how inevitable it may seem when the feeling first takes hold. None of you can imagine what was witnessed tonight unless you see something similar, yet I still ask that you try, and think about this the next time you think you're "totally in love with so-and-so". There is another level to what you feel, one which some people could never reach, if only for fear of what ills might come of it.
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2007-10-02, 16:07
