Love

RAYMUND FERNANDEZ

Christmas, and the topic between us was “love.” I forced a conversation with Elias, my youngest son, who would rather have been rooted to his monitor if left to himself. Still, I told him to talk to me about nothing in particular. After the required show of annoyance, the asinine – “So how’s the weather in there, Pa?” — he came back at me by asking what we should talk about. We are not very communicative as a family as you might have guessed by now. Nothing beyond the pale of normal but I do find myself having to force myself as an expression of parental duty into the realm of my children’s attention.

So I go, “Ask me about anything, life, love, sex…”

“Pa, If I wanted to know more about those things, there’s Google.”

“So tell me, ‘Lyas, What does Google have to say about love? Specifically, falling in love. And why is it “falling” in love instead of “rising” to love?”

As it turned out, the questions can, indeed, be Googled. The answers are informative but they hardly cut into core meanings. Whether the terms are fall or rise in love, the sexual innuendos are self-manifest. The context, after all, is love, possibly, sex. And given the male dominant system, a man would “fall” in love, or more exactly into love, as if to lose control, to fall uncontrolled into a hole of a sort. While perhaps, the woman might more accurately “rise up” to love. But what is the more accurate? To fall or to rise in love?

Beyond the sexual innuendo, there is, of course, love truly in this day and age, and in this particular Christmas season. And perhaps one might think of God and how he sent his only begotten son to Earth in order to save humanity from the curse of “original” sin as well as all other sins besides. Put in context of the world such as we see now, we must wonder if it was worth it. But this, perhaps, is the very same sense of “wonder” we might feel for going through the big trouble of travelling to another island to be with the “old” family, to live in the “old” house and to be with folk. Is this worth it, given the shortness of time, the difficulty of booking rides, and the rush of traffic everywhere?

And we know of course that it is.

A few days, just only a few days, and then we feel truly what we are missing just by being away most of the time. And how we still dream of spending more time here if only we could. And we might as well wonder also if Jesus who lived on this planet from baby to martyr on the cross also misses being here.

He did not fall into love. He rose up to it. Perhaps, the same way we should in this day and age and season. To rise up to love more exactly than to fall into it. Merry Christmas!