Love

I'm currently reading The Best Buddhist Writing 2008 and so far I am impressed. Just now I completed a story entitled "My Marital Status" by James Kullander. In it, Kullander describes his relationship with his ex-wife. After ten years of marriage, the couple decided to divorce because he did not want children and she did. They remained friends and cared for each other. Then, some years later, she was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. Neither having remarried, Kullander was there for her. He spent the next few months caring for her, spending his nights in the hospital, and tending to her on her deathbed. Towards the end of her life, her brain was no longer functioning due to the cancer, but he remarried her in a bedside ceremony with her family present. He knew they had carried a flame for each other despite being divorced.

Kullander struggles with checking "divorced" or "widowed" on forms. That's where he begins and ends this story. It is touching. It reminds me that authentic love does exist. It is possible to have that depth of love. And that's what Kullander says marriage is: "the depth of feeling you have for each other." As he wrote: "It's only the love between two people that's real, that lasts. Everything else comes and goes."

How true. Sometimes I tend to scoff at the thought and famous Beatles song, "All You Need is Love." But maybe there is some validity to that. Just maybe, love is all you need. Sure we need money, shelter, food, etc. But those are physical things we need. Love is a spiritual need. If the love is real and reciprocated, what else matters? We are merely passing through this life. People and possessions come and go. But love - love lasts.