The Measure of Love

Months ago, we celebrated the 13th death anniversary of a very good friend, Joyce. After the usual prayers and dinner, there was a short program to give tribute to this, once, kind and smiling lady. She may not have done something great to change the world situation but please bear with me to dedicate this column to her today with the family’s permission.

Joyce died of cervical cancer which got her so fast as to pass away after barely eleven months after the diagnosis of her ailment even as she was treated too. She was a young mother of two girls and so in love with her husband of 14 years. Married to a teen-age sweetheart, she was so full of faith in her dreams for her family.

If there was ever a time that we saw her in a bad mood, none among us, her friends, can remember, In fact, she had the capacity to go on smiling through life despite its bitter twists and turns. We have always admired their family – the husband seemed so responsible and loving and the children were so behaved and intelligent. However, in the short tribute to her, the husband shared excerpts of the letter she wrote to him which was entrusted to the husband’s sister before she died. As she willed it, the letter was given that night after her interment. The reading was followed by the husband’s very brief confession that sounded so full of remorse and sincerity that it kept tugging at our hearts long after we have parted that afternoon.

He never knew that Joyce had discovered his blooming love affair with a co-worker about six months before she passed away. The wife, in her usual, sweet way reminded him then, “Dad, despite all your flaws, I will love you… I had vowed to love and understand your faults as best I could but please, don’t give us a reason to lose that trust and respect in you as husband and father.” He was so taken in by the seductive charms of his co-worker then that he failed to understand what his wife meant. He described the other-woman as very aggressive. Joyce worsened each month thereafter that she stayed in her mother’s house for proper care as the husband continued working. The gifts sent to Joyce through her husband by his relatives and family friends were mostly taken by this woman from his table drawer as if it were her own. Often, she took it amidst tantrums and a lot of pouting. Looking back according to him, it was only when he decided to part with her that he realized how foul-mouthed and an opportunist she was… the very opposite of his wife.

Each time he came home late in the evenings (after dinner with the other woman), he’ll always find Joyce sitting up in bed in deep prayer or was meditating with her bible in hand. Asked what she was praying about, she’d answer weakly, “I always pray for you to see truth in all you do that you may live in the light, Dad. I pray for the girls too that they may be strong as they meet difficulties. I may not be with them all the time…” Still, he said, he was blind yet to see what she was referring to. He was so engrossed in the belief that true love had come to him through the other-woman because Joyce will soon die with her cancer. When that happens, they’ll marry and he’ll be even happier.

Contrary to that, his way of life changed when she died. He came home early one evening; Joyce asked him if he still believed that her love for him was never altered by their years of marriage… He had said ‘yes.’ She was so weak yet, there was no complaint from her. In between bouts of pain she pressed the hand of her husband to say “Thank you for staying up with me.” At about the first chimes of the church bells that dawn; she expired, still praying for everyone she remembered.

The husband said that had he known he’d lose her that soon, he could not have done many things he did to hurt her feelings like giving her heartaches on top of her own pains, or he could have done many things he never did as in filing a long vacation just to be with her, and others. Indeed the most painful phrase is, “I could have done… but couldn’t do anything anymore now.”

These days, when many families are separated, marriages wrecked and husbands enticed to seek cheap thrills elsewhere to be in to the crowd of the ‘macho men’ or in the company of an adventurous woman, only a handful of wives can be like Joyce. She never raised a voice of reproach to him but her loving kindness made him, according to the husband, a changed man – a very caring father of their children and a proud grandfather today. Most of what was written in her letter was not shared with us but she ended it with a poem that is written below:

How Do I Love Thee
By: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

We all love to hear changes for the better. You don’t really have to be a big-wig of society to create a ripple… an act of goodness from the heart of one can surely spell a difference in this world of strife and greed. After all, we can all be heroes and heroines. How? Oh, by simply doing simple things in our very own grand way. A smile is a good start for it. Go!