Exhaustion: the Sign of One Heart Loving

In “Love on the Run” I mulled the challenge of my friend whose cancer gives him a life expectancy of “five weeks or five years.”  How does he love?  If he loves (his wife and kids and grandkids and friends) as if he has five weeks, will he be exhausted if he lives to week 6?  And if he loves as if he had five years and finds himself dying in one, will he regret his moderation in loving?

One of my kids reminded me that love is not an individual act, but the dance of a relationship.  She wrote “I feel that to love means freely, getting exhausted and that's when your beloved picks you up.” 

The common koan “the sound of one hand clapping” came to mind when I realized my limiting love by isolating the one attempting to love.  A koan is a Zen riddle that, being unthinkable, stops us from thinking so we can simply be present.  But while we know that it takes two hands to clap (only a fool would try to it with one) we commonly try to love with one heart alone.  I believe that my daughter pointed out to me the foolishness of my thinking.

I am blessed in companioning with my friend in his living with cancer, because he accepts my companionship, listens and shares, and together we grow in our capacity to love and be loved.  

A few weeks ago I had visited for the third time my brother who moved far from family into the woods in another state.  I’ve admired a great deal about him and during the forty years of our adulthood, we’ve had a sometimes challenging but respectful and loving relationship despite significant lifestyle differences.  We share an older brother who similarly isolated himself from family and died at age 60 after years of drinking, smoking, and finding a place of joy in part-time work while continuing to fight demons of resentment and disillusionment, much of it related to family.

So when this brother moved into the woods, I wanted to do all I could to go and visit him, to let him know that he was important to me, that I supported his dream.  Perhaps the word that right or wrong describes this desire of mine was to “validate” him in his new venture.  Now that seems arrogant, but I get ahead of myself.

A few weeks ago we had a family reunion near his place, but far enough (and noisy enough) that he could justify not attending, or joining as little as possible.  So I talked with him about coming up and staying with him rather than camping with the others, so we could spend some time together as well.  With a couple of our kids, we enjoyed a loving visit, lots of conversation, and delight in the beauty of the place he’s made for himself. 

Three days after returning home, I was happy to see a letter from him in our mailbox, anticipating a reprise of the good times we’d shared.  Instead was a brief note that said he’d had more than enough of me and that I was not welcome in his house.   Since then, both of my letters to him have been returned unopened.

Arrogant.  I think my attempts to love as an act were arrogant.  Perhaps I’m learning that love is not an act by a lover, but presence to another that sometimes results in a loving relationship.  Love does not emerge from the will of a lover, but from the relationship between or among people present to each other. 

Now by some irony, I have just one hand for the next two weeks.  A bicycling injury resulting in a broken shoulder has my right arm in a sling following surgery.  I am coming to experience the need for help to do so many things that I thought within my power, simple things like mowing the grass or taking a shower or driving the car.  Things much easier than loving.