What is love? I used to think love was sacrifice and pain and hurt and suffering. To love was to become unconscious and complicit. To love was to protect and provide for everyone and everything while hiding myself in plain sight. To love was to lose myself. Love was too expensive for me to bear, the beast of a burden.
Mistaking lust for love. Longing for love. Loss for love. Emptiness to fill. Fleeting feelings of a fire that sputters out at the first sign of rain.
I was wrong.
So I sat down and defined it. To refine it. To grind it down. To make it my own. When do I feel loved? What is my happiest childhood memory?
A flashback.
Around a small, square and wooden table, two little girls sit on each side of their mother. In the middle is a chocolate cake with no candle. I am one of the little girls, and it is my birthday. We haven’t started school yet, so I must be five or six years old. I sit and marvel at the cake larger than my head. Smell of chocolate fill our nostrils, and I cannot help but smile, looking at Mom, sister and our chocolate cake.
We are at grandparents, where we now live, after Dad left for America. We are sitting by the entrance of our small room. Middle of the day, with yellow linoleum floor, swept and wiped down. It is winter here, and the floor feels warm to our happy bottoms. A still frame clicks into memory forever, etched into my heart to remember a mother’s love for her child. My mother’s love.
Love is taking time to understand the one you serve. To take care them in the way they need you to. A sensitive and overwhelmed child, I didn’t care for fanfares or too many people around me. Preferring to read and turn the pages, I savored quite moments with nature and time to myself.
And so, this love letter is to my mother. Thank you for loving and taking care of me. For seeing me as I am. For never stopping to answer my endless questions. For being honest and saying I don’t know.
You let me climb you, to lay myself atop. Because I was afraid of monsters coming to get me in the evenings. You taught me how to write my name in Korean (권 수산나) before school started. You purchased additional lessons to provide extracurricular academic studies. For me, studying was like playing outside and doing additional work with you after school 1:1 gave me joy of learning with a mother by my side.
For punishing me only when I fought sister. My only sin, for I could do no wrong in your eyes. Punishing me by making me hold my hands high above my head, feeling my muscles growing tired. And if I was really bad, you’d increase the weight by making me hold a hand broom. And if I committed the worst crime of being a terror to sister, you would ask me to roll up my pants and hit me on the back of my calves.
Even then, I knew this hurt you more than it hurt me. And as I felt the anger welling up inside my stomach, and tears rolling down my face, I knew you loved me in the best way possible.
And so, what is love? Love is work made visible, with every fiber of your being. To get to know the person that is the object of your affection. What do they like to eat? How do they want to celebrate their birthday? For breakfast, lunch and dinner. Taking the time to plan meals, buying ingredients, cooking, seasoning, serving, clearing, and doing it all over again. Love is mundane. Love is made up of the smallest gestures and actions. Love fills not only our stomach, but also our hearts and minds. Love is not strawberries dipped in chocolate. Love is not bags of potato chips and they do not unwrap conveniently out of pre-packaged boxes. Love is not fleeting. Love sustains long after you are gone. Love reminds us of the love that we once had, that we thought was lost.
Love is like this tear rolling down my right eye, as my stomach clenches and relaxes, as my heart swells with pride and appreciation for the love I received. To recognize it when I see it. When I receive it. When I feel it. When I give it.
Love is like the air we breathe. It is there, even when we don’t look for it. Without it we perish. All we have to do is breathe and be still. Surrender ourselves to what is. Let go of what is not. Love is not conditional. Love requires us to give without expectations, like this life we were given, the greatest gift of our being.
To love is to love myself and cherish every moment. This is the best way. The only way to repay you. Thank you for loving me.
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