I wrote this through the numbing haze of a few sips of alcohol last night. While I have done some editing, the essence is still there, though better distilled. The alcohol in question was the result of fermentation, not distilling.
In a recent private exchange with another contributor to this web site I jokingly remarked I had given myself a lot of material and the other blogger could feel free to use it too.
The remark was made in humour, but it struck me that as one of us being a cancer widower and the other being a patient, we had different perspectives and yet, we found our thoughts crossed over each other. Certain interests/obsessions were also shared. Funny how life throws up correspondences (as in an exchange of letters and as in similarities, how I love these linguistic felicities).
I observed that between Laing and I I don’t really know if we were in love. You see, I don’t know what love is. There is the love I have for a parent. It isn’t important how close or distant one is to a parent, and I have experience of both with my father. My mother and I were pretty close. There were things we never discussed, things I wish we had, but Fate intervened at one point and I took it to be a sign I wasn’t meant to discuss it with her. I’m a stupid superstitious old devil!
My, as I am typing, my deliciously chilled Fleurie (yes, you can and should drink certain red wines chilled) is kicking in. I have been sipping it with my simple supper of a vegan cheese substitute, which despite its claim, didn’t come over as being particularly like Edam. It was more or less sort of cheese like, and with a glass or two of chilled Fleurie and some gorgeous tomatoes it all has gone/is going down a treat.
Anyway, back to Laing and I. Laing and I said we loved each other, but I never knew if we were in love. I don't really know what love is. I wish I did. I wish it could be simple and obvious. You know the sort of thing, like in a Hollywood/Broadway musical. The big song where love is declared, but maybe not in those precise words (the lyricists were pretty clever and subtle).
Or else in the background there is the chorus singing. Metre and verse are perfect. The arranger has ensured the harmonies are the most cloying in the entire score. Those sounds define “I AM IN LOVE” in neon so bright that makes Piccadilly Circus looks like it is in permanent blackout. Swooping strings soar from out of the orchestra pit. into the auditorium. Wouldn’t it be easy if love was always defined in a way that was a big production number?
I cared for Laing in a way I never thought possible.
I sacrificed without wanting thanks or praise.
I knew that what we had was special.
Is that love?
I knew subconsciously this was my last chance and it had to count as if it were the only judgement which would be made upon me. I never felt debased as I knelt down to tie and untie his shoe laces. I never felt ashamed that I had to roll the trouser legs so he could step into them and all I had to do was to pull them up and let him buckle the belt himself.
How else could I display to the man who had been the centre of my adult life what responsibility - or do I mean duty - I had to him? Or do I mean what love I had for him?
He was the man who stood by me during my depression and gently forced me (coerced implies something totally different) better in about a month to face going to work again. That was a tough love for him to give and tough for me to take. It was tougher for him as he would have had to live with the consequences had his judgement been wrong.
He was the man who stood by me when my mother died from her third and final encounter with cancer, despite my father’s preference to exclude him. He said he didn’t mind not being with the family (my father, bother and my mother’s sister) going to the crematorium. The tears he shed New Year’s Eve told a different tale.
He allowed me stupid behaviour like giving up work in the Civil Service to try my hand a a new life that fell flat on its face at the first hurdle.
He was the man who stood by me and allowed me to temp and go away on as many holidays as I could fit into a year (more than 8 weeks, easily) when I should have taken the company shilling and been more responsible and built up a pension sooner so I could have contemplated retiring at 60 with a much better pension than I will get at age 65.
I think that’s love. I know he would have done the same for me in life as I did for him. Had our respective fortunes been reversed, me having the career instead of him, for instance, then I would have allowed him the freedom he gave me. If I had had his cancer, he would have done the same for me, unquestioningly, unstintingly. It’s funny (peculiar) how all those clichéd words adverbs I tried to avoid are so apt.
We never “owned” each other. We trusted the other unquestioningly. We both knew we had both erred and strayed, me more so than Laing who more ummed than erred), but we still were a strong unit.
Apart from the cancer, and even then, ironically, on reflection, maybe not, I wouldn’t change anything since the day we met, apart from that all important win we never had on the lottery. That cancer gave us something that enabled us to transcend the ordinary mundane existence we were in. We had become comfortable in a rut of our own making.
I guess love is a lot of things. Dedication to each other, sharing experiences, enjoying separate experiences, learning from each other, being unlike each other, being like each other, being bloody minded and not budging, giving way gracefully, are just a few that spring to mind immediately.
I think I am just beginning to scratch the surface of the definition of love. Like the individual’s genetic make-up, love is different for everybody. What Laing may have thought was love may not be the same as mine. I know the morning hug and peck on the lips was more than routine, as was the hug when I got home. I never felt safer than when I was with him. When the wind blew strongly it would worry him. A hug, a snuggle from me made him feel more at ease, though I was never able to prevent that nagging at the back of his mind. Nevertheless, he was stronger than I generally. I am trying to discover the strength he had. Through his death I have discovered abilities I never realised. It is as though his spirit, the essence of what made him Laing is seeping into my very existence. Is this another aspect of what makes love? A new life after death?
My mother, her sister, and now Laing, all had cancer sometime in their lives. I’ve been lucky. I had to live with the people with cancer. They had to live with their cancers. That is hard.
Laing. I love you. I can’t define it. I have always hated not being able to quantify or qualify anything in my life, but I know you left a gaping hole when you died and yet you are slowly filling that hole as I have taken on more of your personality and abilities. You are more a part of me now than when you were alive, and yet when you died, I felt like a leg had been amputated, and now I am learning to walk once more. Your spirit, your very being is part of me. The night after your cremation, you cuddled up to me in bed. You had been freed from the body. You’re always about the house somewhere. Your ashes are beside me. I cuddled them as I edited this blog when emotion got the better of me and that calmed me. You are still here working your magic, even if it is cremated form.
Love, eh? Do we know when we are in love, as opposed to lust? Do we know what is love? Is that what remains once lust has subsided? If I were to be asked now to define love, I would simply answer, “Words fail me.”
