I tell people that I the human race is inherently good, and they sneer at me and tell me to read the news.
I share my conviction that animals have souls, and they talk about the raccoon that ate their cat.
I tell them that I believe in God, and they recount a litany of ungodlike events that happen daily.
Yes, I am inherently optimistic about life in general. . .
Day-to-day I can be a total b***ch, but my universal perspective is one of absolute belief that the driving force around us is love.
How does that work, you ask?
How can you flip off that innocent old man who floats into your lane, yet believe that there is more love than hate in the world?
How can you double flip-off that mother in the minivan when she goes 25 mph in a 45 mph zone, yet flip the homeless guy a twenty?
How can you tell a marketer that “Donna Highfill doesn’t live here anymore” when you are she?
I don’t have good answers for those questions, but I can tell you why I believe in love.
I believe in love because . . .
- When I was a young girl in the hospital, late at night, crying my eyes out, an older woman brought me two ice cream cups with two wooden spoons. While everyone else slept, she sat with me until I finished my ice cream.
- The news recently recounted the story of two grown men risking their lives to save a kitten stuck on the subway tracks in New York City.
- I was there when little human beings came out of me, taking most of my good hair follicles and any hope for future body perkiness, but the love was unmistakable.
- When my dad was dying, I saw him battle like a warrior. But when he left his body I knew he was out of his shell, and when the sun came out for a brief moment I knew he had transformed into light.
- I took two women from a shelter to lunch at Burger King, and we laughed like old friends.
- I watched a video of a man and his wife rescue a fawn that had fallen down their basement steps, then give it back to the grateful doe who waited for its safe return.
- The morning my husband had his first chemo treatment I walked out of my house at 5:45 a.m. and almost one hundred birds took off out of the trees and let me know that God was bigger than my fear.
- When I was little, and left alone to recuperate, crows came and sat with me when I was outside. Every day. They talked and talked, and all I heard was love.
- There are nurses and teachers and preachers who make pitiful salaries but do what they do because they love the patients and the students and their congregations.
- And then there is the proof of pain. When we lose those we love, every part of us grieves. The pain cannot be described. Waves of grief surprise us. But those waves are proof of the ocean-like depth of love.
I believe in love because I know that I would die for my children (and probably the rest of my family, but I can’t make any promises).
I know that I have felt deep compassion for people I don’t even know, including every woman Tom Cruise has ever married.
I know that when I look at a blanket of fog resting on a field in the morning I am moved to tears.
In the beauty of nature, in the laughter of my kids, in the eye contact between me and my husband, and in the magnificence of a bald-eagle spotted, I find my home. The place I belong. The hearth upon which I can curl up and sigh.
I find the beauty that is planted within each of us. I plug in and relax, and I don’t flip off one soul.
That’s why I believe in love.