A Sucker for Love. Or Maybe Not.

Love.

A 4 letter word that has baffled the minds and hearts of many. It has made us go crazy, it has made us cry bucket-loads, it has made us move continents for it, travel the world for it, chase after it, try to control it, marry for it, pro-create because of it, it has made us build towers, construct awesome creations, write amazing scripts, make great movies and write box-office-hit songs. Some men have even died for it.

Ah, the things we do for love.

My parents met 44 years ago. She was a 24 year old British stewardess at the time. He was a 27  year old Egyptian in Cairo doing a Masters degree at AUC. He met her at the airport with a friend. She was coming to Cairo for a ten day holiday. He instantly was attracted. She was not. They spent the ten days in each other’s company. She couldn’t remember his name and for the first three days felt repelled. He would blow smoke into her hair. Flirting, he called it. Annoying, she remembers. On the tenth day, he took her to the Shepherd Hotel by the Nile. They ordered Screwdrivers. He had a little box in his pocket with a ring inside. His hands were shaking. He popped the question. She said yes. He had managed to ‘sweep her off her feet.’ She flew back to England. He withdrew from his Master’s programme. They wrote to each other everyday. Six months later, he flew over and they got married.

44 years later they are still married.

Ah, the things we do for love.

Probably the best part of this story, apart from the fact that they are still married, is when my father went to the British embassy to get himself a visa to travel to England. He was denied one because he needed certain documents he didn’t have. In a flash, he pulled out a letter my mother had written him and showed the woman at the visa counter. “Look,” he said. “It’s a love letter from my fiancée. I just need the visa to go over there and marry her.”

It worked. The lady must have melted right before him. He got a visa stamped into his passport right then and there.

Ah, the things we DO for love!

Each love experience is a gift – that should be nurtured for as long as it lasts; for each love experience holds valuable lessons – about yourself – to be learnt. It is never in vain.

Everlasting love, however – true love (and I’m not talking about the kind of arrangement that is simply convenient, born out of loneliness or expected of you) is with a Soulmate. And you will know when you meet them, because (if you are authentic and honest with yourself) in time you will see how you are both mentally, emotionally, physically, energetically – and perhaps most important of all – spiritually aligned. And what a day that realisation will be! A day well worth the wait.

I leave you with the wise words of Khalil Gibran, for few have managed to say it any better:

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

(Taken from The Prophet. For the complete text, click here)

Happy Valentines Day everyone
& Spread some love