Can love be measured? When we fall
in love for the first time usually we tend to ask, how much do you love me?
Even a child stretches her hands behind her back and says, “I love you this
much! All the way to the moon and back!”
Only if that was true; then what
happens when we part from each other. Either by choice or by fate or by death.
People move on, everyone says time is the solution for every sorrow; you will
heal over time; just give some time. If one is clinging to the memories and
other person is embracing the life and moving on; how would you measure their
love? Who loved the lost one more?
If we ever get some solitude then
why do all those memories keep whirling back? Imagine some evening when no one
is home; its cloudy outside and you are just sitting at your windowpane-
looking at the stormy clouds gathering up in the sky. In no time your mind
starts reflecting that storm inside- all those memories start surfacing up. May
be it was that silly fight you had with your classmate or the prank against the
teacher in which you got caught or a secret that you kept from parents about
bunking school and going for a movie. It just keeps perturbing that maybe we
should have shared it, expressed our unsaid feelings. Then after many years we
gather the courage to pick up the phone/write that email/send message- to make
amends with our parents, lost friends or even first unexpressed love.
What would we do if we lose someone
close to our heart forever, what if there is no second chance? How debilitated a
person would be that time? World seems to pause for that moment, everything
seems trifling. It feels like taking that next breath is a sin. How does it
feel to attend a baby shower after having early miscarriage? And people
expecting you to move on; telling you to find happiness somewhere else!
After a while we tend to believe-
time is the only solution. We even try to fool ourselves with the age old
saying that time can heal everything! It seems possible that one day we could
wake up with no memories from past and could go on enjoying the breakfast on
the same table –ignoring that empty chair. Again house could be filled with
aroma of Christmas cookies. Life has to move on; right? Or does that mean now
that seemingly unmeasurable love as well died with them?
Every spring when we witness new
life quivering out of earth we tend to wonder how she would have loved working
in her garden waiting for the blooms. Or where she would have planned to go for
summer vacation? What could I have given him on this father’s day? What would
have made him smile? Would she have approved my boyfriend? If she were alive
she would have gone for prom this year.
Do such thoughts just stop coming
to us after a while- when we lose our mom/dad/son/daughter/friend/neighbor? No,
we carry them in our mind all the time. While enjoying their favorite dessert,
or when a whiff of their favorite perfume passes by or …. simply until we are
alive. Yes, we do drag our baggage everywhere. There is no escape from it. No social gathering
seems complete without our lost loved ones. When we see complete families that
incompleteness becomes even more prevalent. We just swallow our tongue, put on
a smile and show others- we are fine. Pretend that time has worked its magic-
everyone lost is forgotten!
But secretly we are just saying, “I
will keep loving you forever, from all the way to the moon and back….”
