(Photo Creative Commons)

Aasiya I Versi

I don’t do love. There is so much pressure to love with all your might that to even suggest that you feel otherwise is inhumane, and even more so for mothers.

You have to love your husband, love your children, love your family and it is all simply exhausting. I am a cautious lover. I don’t fall into it, I rather dip into it from time to time, like when you first feel the cold water in a swimming pool. I cannot always dive into it fully. Does that compromise on my ability to be a wife, lover, friend and a mother?

When my first offspring was born through an eventful C–Section, it left me winded and shell shocked. At day ten the midwife came home – a kindly old woman with her stockings and sensible shoes, sat quietly next to me, examined my scar, and asked, “How are you doing?” I whispered back.“I don’t love my child.” She leaned forward and said, “But that is to be expected of course.” At that moment, as the pressure to love was lifted, I looked at my mewling child and respected her for all that she had gone through to be laying there next to me, and I heard and saw my child in all her glory.

Love in all its different shapes comes and goes without rhyme or reason, which leads me to believe that it is a God-given emotion and whose presence I cannot control along with so much of my life. When ‘husband’ first came in through my doors, I remember ducking behind the fridge door and being scared of the decisions that I would have to make. To date, he is the biggest (and best) gamble of my life. I did not fall in love, the lights from heaven did not shine down and tell me which path to take. We fitted together, like bread and butter, Nutella and strawberries (we never claim to love bread and butter do we?).

It was a conscious decision that I decided to invest time and emotions in. Do we then love each other? If love means, that he holds me when I am most scared, then yes. If love means he can read my deepest fears and explain them to me then yes. If love means he sees and hears me when nobody else does then yes. We need to replace this compulsion to love with a compulsion to care.

Our turning points in life are when we have felt, seen and heard by people around us, who do not necessarily need us in our lives but have chosen to be present.

In the volunteer role that I have recently embarked on, I came across an unusually quiet child. I pulled him aside and asked if there was anything I could do to help? What was going on? The child barely responded. I finished the conversation by saying I was here if ever he needed help. He went back into class, and we started seeing him participate and engage with his teacher and his peers for the first time in months!

This reaction was disproportionate to the conversation that had taken place earlier, but the question is what brings out the best in us, love or the conscious consideration of a fellow human being?

If those strangers, whose life you momentarily cross can have such an impact in your life then what happens when those closest to you happen to see and hear you in your most vulnerable moments?

One does not need to love to create an impact; they just need to take the time to care and cultivate respect for another human being and their story. Try it and let me know what you find.