As much as I hate to say it, the Beatles were wrong when they said, "Love is all you need." It's just not that simple.
Love nurtures life, but we need much more. I think Andrew Lloyd Webber got it right when he wrote the lyric, "Love changes everything," for the musical "Aspects of Love." Love changes our lives, whether it's the openhearted, head-over-heels kind of love that makes us obsessed with our lover, or the kind of love we feel for a child. But love also changes our lives when it slowly begins to die in a marriage, or when it's betrayed by broken promises.
And the nature of love is forever altered when death visits the relationship.
Recently I attended the funeral of a young man in his 40s who died of glioblastoma, a terminal brain cancer that also took my sister's life 15 years ago. The young man's parents are dear friends of mine, and I had watched how they took the news when they first learned that he had cancer. Like anyone else, they felt shock, rage, disbelief and desperation. During a dinner I had had with the young man's father several weeks before his son died, he had told me how his mind darted back and forth constantly from rage at the injustice to love and gratitude for his son.
And while this had been going on, his relationship with his son had changed.
Despite saying that we want what's best for our children, we do have expectations. More often than not, we expect our children to live lives that are roughly similar to ours. And that often is fine if the child has a similar temperament, personality and worldview as his or her parent. But this was not the case with my friend and his son. My friend is a brilliant and disciplined scholar who loves philosophy, history and religion. Until recently, much of his attention was in the left side of his brain, which is more logical and less emotional. His son was a musician and lived much of his life in the right side of his brain, where creativity and sensitivity predominate.
So as you can imagine, there was both great love and great conflict in their relationship. And this is pretty typical of many parent-child relationships. After all, there is inevitably conflict, disappointment and resistance in most parent-child relationships. And all this conflict starts with parental love and our heartfelt wish that this precious child have an easy and happy life. But sometimes that tenderhearted love gets lost behind the stress of desire and expectations.
But after the diagnosis, things were different between my friend and his son. You see, the specter of death puts life in perspective. Expectations go away and historical baggage disappears. And when the light of life flickers, we open ourselves to the love that was always there.
In "Letters to Sam" I talked about the day my mother died. Although we loved each other, my mother and I also had a strained relationship, as we were constantly trying to change each other into the person we needed each other to be. On the day that she died, I arrived at the emergency room about an hour too late. The nurse escorted me back to the gurney where my mother lay. Because of my position in a wheelchair, I could only see her profile. The nurse asked if I would like her to put my mother's hand in mine. "Yes, please," I said. And there I watched those two motionless hands as I reflected back over her life. For the first time, I saw her as a woman and not just as my mother. I saw her as a wife and a daughter. I saw her struggles, the dreams she had realized, and those she had not. That day I felt a love and gratitude for this woman that was always present but rarely felt.
Those feelings recurred to me as I watched my friends love their son so fully, gently, and selflessly. Their love had become the kind that is experienced without expectation or desire for anything other than the opportunity to love him again tomorrow. It's what is called "altruistic love." It's the kind of love we all long for, the kind of love that nurtures one's soul whether it is being given or received.
In the poem "If You Knew," Ellen Bass wonders how we would be different if we knew the next person we saw was dying. How would we experience the encounter? Would we be more kind and gentle? What would life look like if we stopped trying to change the people we love and just sat with them and gazed in their eyes knowing that we may not see them tomorrow? What would it be like if we could do the same thing for ourselves?
Just yesterday my friend told me that he has a chance with his 10-year-old grandson to correct all of the mistakes he made with his son, that he had the rest of his life to practice loving this child without expectation or agendas, that he would practice the kind of openhearted love he had felt for his son these past several months.
This is indeed a blessing for my friend and a blessing for his grandson. My fervent wish is that we can all learn the lessons my friend learned.
Indeed, love changes everything.
Follow Dan Gottlieb, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DanGottlieb
Rick Hamlin: Prayer 101: An Attitude of Gratitude
Dan
Someone asked us a question about how to deal with his parents' disapproval when he got a DUI and kicked off of his high school's football team. Read about our thoughts here and see if you agree with our advice: http://thesocialshrink.blogspot.com/2010/11/when-they-push-you-down-you-gotta-get.html
Keep the good news coming Dan.
Letting go is an act of courage and an act of love.
Thank you for reading this post and especially thank you for reflecting about what you've read.
Dan
Thank you, as always, for your reminder. I thought I'd share the poem you kindly mention.
xo
If You Knew
What if you knew you'd be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line's crease.
When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn't signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won't say Thank you, I don't remember
they're going to die.
A friend told me she'd been with her aunt.
They'd just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt's powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.
How close does the dragon's spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?
by Ellen Bass
from The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007)
You might notice some aspects of next week's blog that will resonate. My hope is that it will be useful for anyone next Wednesday who is grieving, or knows someone who is.
May your cup be full this Thanksgiving! You are shining.
Cara
Emotional crisis such as the death or terminal illness in a loved one cuts the resistance to the kind love of love the Beatles and Weber express - unconditional love.
Most parents love their children. Most children love their parents. Why, then, are there so many difficult relationships between parent and child?
Expectations are part of the equation for such relationship trauma. Judgment is another piece. Match or agree with my lens of the world or you are wrong or somehow 'less than' - whether clearly articulated or implied.
Expectations and judgment place conditions upon love. Instead of being loved or for who we are we're loved only if we fit a certain mold. When we understand each person does the best they can with the light they have to see we have compassion. (some people may be missing a few flashlight batteries) Knowing each person's reality is an edit based on individual perspective, we show love by honoring another's view.
When we're shaken by illness or death we shift perspectives. We let go of our resistance to unconditional love. We love openly with compassion. Only then can we really see and appreciate our loved one instead of the self-protective wall that blocks the full potential of our relationship.
The hard part: In order to hold unconditional love for another we have to hold it for ourselves. We can't give what we don't have.
And that is the ultimate blessing for ourselves and the greater good of
May our hearts open and blossom with increasing gratitude for life flowing through us this very instant,
Cara
visit my blog: http://stareoutthewindow.com
Thank you for taking the time to contribute your experience. What a joy it is to see such an awareness. When all is 'said and done,' at the end of the day, if we don't like the life we are living, it is matter of 'getting' that it's up to us to revise the way we are telling the story of our lives, and find a more liberating way of thinking!
May these days be good to you!
Cara
Healthy love...love that honors the seperateness of our individual experiences, yet our common humanity..is a powerfully healing force.
Unhealthy love...love that seeks to use others to meet our own wants and needs..needs that we really need to be seeking to fulfill on our own...can be profoundly damaging. Particularly when that kind of conditional love is from a parent to a child. It sends a powerful message that the child is not really valued for who he or she is.....
However---as you allude to---it is not a perfect world, and every person has their broken places and their limitations.
We must offer forgiveness to those whose limiations and broken places damaged us in the name of (unhealthy) love. But sometimes reconciliation is not possible. Because the behavior of the person we are forgiving continues to send out the strong message of that their love comes with strings attached....and when those conditions are not met, the love is witheld.
Yes, Love does ask us to let go of our expectations of others. But sometimes the expectation that needs to be released is the expectation of the relationship itself.
Just know that you are an amazement. I'm just certain that your son would be doing some major 'atta mom's' were he here is physical form. On this week of Thanksgiving, may you be reminded in many, many ways that your Love for him lives on and touches even strangers. Stay in touch, please. I'm behind your project.
All joy and blessings,
Cara
My friend was hard to love because he was very right and a bit racist. He would email me rightwing nonsense frequently; and we went round and round about it. But I don’t give up on people I like easily.
He told me that he loved me even I was liberal and I told him I loved him, even if I found out that he wore tights and a tutu…!
I helped him find a good job in February, in July he was found to cancer and now he’s gone.
I sent him a little Taco Bell Chihuahua that sang ‘Chances Are” while he was in the hospital. His wife said that the little dog gave him his last laugh.
My point is simple, if have loved ones or friends that you care for; let them know now because later may not come for either of you.
THANK YOU
I think that way often and sometimes act upon it, but your reminder is spot on
thanx again!
PEACE
It was great personal loss, these were people who sat in room and everyone there gained an ounce of wisdom.
...............you are fanned............
And man, did they go fast. I still have questions
I learned about feelings, sadness, cruelty and meanness at a very young age. Later I learned about caring and tried to stop certain madness. I am cursed with the ability to read people extremely well. So well, that I must often shield myself, I cannot bear to engage many because I cannot help them.
Politics is an example of people’s unwillingness to back off of their self-centered nature for the sake of even the common good.
……………..fanned………….