Love’s Legacy

People spend a lot of time and energy remembering certain important people who made impressive contributions to all of humanity, and think relatively little to nothing of all of the other human beings who have lived and gone before, who died in obscurity never having invented anything or cured anything or fought valiantly in war for anything or stood for anything or really did anything but just breathe in and out every day, maybe go to work, have a family, have some fun along the way, and then die. Interesting too how people who are remembered are not always those who contributed something good to humanity but also those who were tyrants, dictators, and found pleasure in the suffering of others.

So what makes a life worth remembering? Do the details of any one individual’s life matter? We build bridges, airports, buildings and freeways and name them after these superlative individuals who have accomplished great things in their lifetime. What is the measure of a life lived? And what is the point of collecting experiences throughout a lifetime only to have that life end? Do all those experiences somehow carry forward with us, or perhaps get deposited into some big collective account with everyone else’s, or is all this experiencing just what it is in the moment, temporary for the now, and then vanishing in the next moment, never to have any significance or meaning for anyone or anything somewhere down the line in the distant future. Many people reach a point in their life where they ask themselves what the purpose or meaning of life is.

So it seems simple to me; I feel that love and loving are the only things that really matter. Love is eternal, not fleeting or temporary. I love people who have died just as much now as I did when they were alive. When I close my eyes I can feel their presence, see their smile, hear their voice, and bring up details about them which may or may not be entirely accurate from memory, but the feeling I have, the love that is so readily available to me, never diminishes over time, never fades, and is never far from me.

There are those individuals remembered in history for loving, for being devoted to love and for standing up for love. As I think of some of them, it strikes me as profoundly sad that so many of those who come to mind were killed, often times brutally, because of their devotion to love. My heart is troubled that proclaiming the name of love can ever mean receiving the disdain, hatred, and even violence of others. The power of fear seems to often dominate love, and the manifestations of fear appear to possess limitless potential for destruction when its seeds are cultivated in the human heart, permitted to grow a garden of thorns instead of a garden of joy.