Live and LOVE

“I love you”. Everybody says it. Not everybody means it. Love is easily one of the most abused words in the world, right after “Ayoba” and “Tjatjarag”. I’m sure, once upon a time, everybody understood its significance, but the world has suffered one too many heartbreaks to have an unaffected view on love.

The truth is that loving someone requires so much more than we are prepared to give at times. Passed the infatuation phase and after the cute lyrics and poems, you are bound to have your words tested. Will you really cross the ocean and bring back the moon? I love my wife, very much, but sometimes I do want to be selfish and put myself first. That’s when it hits me... Love is not self-seeking, ever. It is always preoccupied with the other person. It is always an, “I give 100%, 100% of the time” commitment. Sometimes I don’t want to get up from bed and switch off the light... My feet are warm and I’m too comfy. She must do it. She’s closer! But love reminds me, “It’s not about me. It’s all about her. If I love her, I will put her first again and again and even at those moments. ”

People give up on each other because it is not always an easy road to give of yourself, especially when you don’t see any like-response. “Love is not enough” is a statement many people make when relationships fall apart. People say it with all the sincerity in their hearts, but sadly, they are sincerely wrong. Love gets a bad name because of people who don’t know what it means. It is enough... when it operates, interacts and flourishes between two souls. There’s nothing like it in the world.

In the movie, The Last Kiss (one of my favourite flicks); Zach Braff, the male lead, is in a relationship with his sweetheart of a girlfriend. He meets, and is bedazzled by, a hot young thang and his existence is thrown into a spin. He begins questioning his life, his future, his desires and all the while the hot young thang is hot for him. Things happen or they don’t (don’t wanna give the story away), but there is a scene where the he is talking to his girlfriend’s father. The father tells Zach that in 30 years of marriage he has never cheated. Zach is stunned. “Never?”, he asks. “Never”, comes the reply. The dad tells him that he has been tempted. He confesses that women have come onto him, even at his age. And he says he knows that it will continue. His words after that moment are vital... He looks the young man dead in the eye and with all the authority of a man in love, he says, “How you feel matters only to you. It's what you do to the people that you say you love, that's what counts. That's the only thing that matters.”

Love can’t be found in songs, sweet melodies or even words. Love is patient. Love is kind. It is not easily angered and it keeps no record of wrongs. Its existence is suggested in words. But it shows itself only in action.

Love is always enough. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails.