Parents

What is love? When you really start to dissect the term and scramble through your brain for past memories of love, do you comprehend it? I think I have no authority writing on such things. I do however have an opinion. This opinion is in no means my attempt at some individualized definition, rather it is a feeling. A feeling I am trying to portray, much in the same way a visual artist would create something very personal and abstract yet upon close scrutiny are found some hints of familiarity. This is my aim. To bring to your imagination my version of love.

It is just a simple memory, and it is actually fairly recent. It passed so effortlessly that if it never happened at all there probably would be no change in my external life whatsoever. Perhaps because of it's easy nature, this memory evokes no emotional sensation. Nothing! How could this be? The one memory I have that equates to love sifts through me like a spring breeze arousing no call to action nor longing for the past. It doesn't leave me hoping for more love or even panic if I must go without. Although it was a temporary passing, it left a mark not fully understood until it's gentle departure.

Family. I finally understand this word. I get the meaning now. The importance of this cannot be understated. Science has some reasons for close communal bonding but there is something much larger at play when it comes to your blood. Something I have only recently started to experience. I will not say that it is because I am a particular type of person, that I should come to this understanding. Perhaps there are people who have experienced such things and have never considered their meaning.

The memory itself is just as important as the neutral emotion that surrounds it. Yet neither are what I consider this love I am trying to explain. The memory consists of the interactions between the family as well as the collective daily habits. The neutral feeling is how I feel when I remember those things. Together they form something that tells me that love is there. Not love itself. I realized that my parents would do anything for my siblings and I. That they are traveling their own journeys burden enough alone never mind the extra weight placed by us. In my youth I would do nothing to ease this weight, in fact I would add to it at any given opportunity. But guilt has no place here.

Florida's gentle weeks. The end of the winter coincided with the end of my former job. I felt as though it was a time of peace and this is what perhaps I mean by neutrality. No upcoming projects allowed me little more than reflection. Change was in it's prime I believe now, as the old felt already washed and the uncertain future posed no challenge. In fact my future seemed like it wasn't even waiting for me. There was nothing for me, except my family.

I spent my time with them actually getting to know them. As if they were strangers I could trust. It's when I took this approach that I realized my parents have qualities found in those so often written about in superhero tales. Self-sacrificing with determination to protect and help at all costs, no matter the suffering they must so often endure. I have been inspired by people I once took for granted. They were always in the background, lifting me up at every opportunity. Helping and guiding, sometimes even saving with no gratitude shown in return.

They need no acknowledgement. Why do they continue to help? If I were a parent could I experience such selflessness?