A Lesson in Love

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

My dad looked at me and said - "I’ve followed everything that God has instructed, so why isn’t He letting me go?"

"Maybe He has something else for you to learn," I told him.

"I know," he said.

"What do you think it is?" I asked.

His answer was deliberate, his voice a whisper.

"It’s love. The love you, your sister, and Kerry have for me."

"It’s the only thing that remains," I told him.

His eyes welled up and then he said: "But I made a deal with God that I would do anything if only He let me go after my wife. And I feel like I have failed."

"But your love lives on in us," I said.

He nodded again.

After that, my dad didn’t say much. A silence settled between us, a space I could feel more than explain.

I’ve been thinking about it all week—how there is a space between life and death that is filled with mystery.

How does one prepare for this?

For my dad, it means watching hours of the televisions series, Band of Brothers. But why, I wonder? Is he connecting to his own father, the one who lived through these experiences in World War II?

And why does he show us hours of YouTube videos of New Zealand? Perhaps because it’s the only place he has ever felt heaven?

I live in these questions and return to my dad’s words:

"It’s all about love."

Yes. In the face of mystery, this is all I can understand.

As you read this, what love in your life feels eternal?

A POEM

“Will You?” by Carrie Fountain

When, at the end, the children wanted
to add glitter to their valentines, I said no.

I said nope, no, no glitter, and then,
when they started to fuss, I found myself

saying something my brother’s football coach
used to bark from the sidelines when one

of his players showed signs of being
human: oh come on now, suck it up.

That’s what I said to my children.
Suck what up? my daughter asked,

and, because she is so young, I told her
I didn’t know and never mind, and she took

that for an answer. My children are so young
when I turn off the radio as the news turns

to counting the dead or naming the act,
they aren’t even suspicious. My children

are so young they cannot imagine a world
like the one they live in. Their God is still

a real God, a whole God, a God made wholly
of actions. And I think they think I work

for that God. And I know they will someday soon
see everything and they will know about

everything and they will no longer take
never mind for an answer. The valentines

would’ve been better with glitter, and my son
hurt himself on an envelope, and then, much

later, when we were eating dinner, my daughter
realized she’d forgotten one of the three

Henrys in her class. How can there be three Henrys
in one class? I said, and she said, Because there are.

And so, before bed we took everything out
again—paper and pens and stamps and scissors—

and she sat at the table with her freshly washed hair
parted smartly down the middle and wrote

WILL YOU BE MINE, HENRY T.? and she did it
so carefully, I could hardly stand to watch.

Grateful,

Michael