My love will abide

I never knew until I had you that love is inexhaustible, a renewable energy that expands to fill the spaces in you if you let it. I never knew until I had you how filled I could be, from time to time, how light my heart could be, from time to time, how the small spark of love in me could be fanned into flames with just the lightest breeze.

It is late evening, warm and close. Zenita is asleep on the bed I built today. She tried it out and said it was so comfortable she had to sleep on it tonight.

Little pools of sweat gather on her face. Her Lions pajamas are too hot for this weather and she does not have summer nightwear yet.

Her lip trembles in her sleep. Some small trouble in her dream. I wish only to take away the smallest of trouble and give her a life without care. At least, to not become a source of it.

I am terrible at this. The daily chore of parenthood is something I am unfit for. But I do try. Sometimes I wonder whether it will count with her when we are older. Zenella already seems not to love anybody but herself but she is a teen and impenetrable. I feel guilty that I am wishing Zenita will not leave behind her sweetness. I do not love Zenella any less for it.

How could I? I have loved her for every moment of her life. I have loved her passionately, overwhelmingly, more than I have loved anyone else, more than I could love anyone else. Whatever she is, I have helped to make her. Whatever is broken, I helped to break.

I wonder whether I can say I have done my best. I do not think I can, if only because I do not know what my best could be and I know I so often fail to reach it in every other thing I do. But I do not think she can feel I do not love her.

***

I forgive everyone else in my life who tries. I have love for everyone who falls short because we are only what we are. It is only me who I cannot find forgiveness for. It is only me I cannot love at all.

I have known hatred. I have known bitterness. None of it made me feel the smallest bit of comfort. And those I hated, those who inspired bitterness, I feel I can still wish them well. It is only me I cast into a void, to spin wordlessly in an emptiness that nothing fills but my love, my abiding love, for the beautiful people I have helped to make.

posted by Dr Zen @ 11:52 am