Love is not abandoning yourself. It is setting yourself aside for a moment to care for another.

2026 has gone down in the ledger of my life as one of my hardest years, and barely four others are in the same league of emotional weariness. In chronological order, they include the year a bully threatened my life, when my wonderful sister Jessie was no longer here, the time a car hit my mom at a crosswalk, and when I received a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. After it all happened, I hoped I had crossed the bridge of dread. But this year, another rung was added!

My dad fell terribly ill and was in the hospital – for way too long! Every step was unpredictable, but miraculously, he recovered better than anyone could have imagined. The other day, we were chatting, and I told him some distinct ways he is a better man now than he was before he was ill. Admittedly, it is mind-boggling, as my dad has always been an incredible man, a fantastic father, and a model husband to my mom, as she always says! However, more than being admired, he values her understanding of him. – Such reasoning is a sign of mature love that doesn’t automatically come with age. It is a mark of refinement, and happens when life tests someone, and they endure, learn, and grow. This year, when my dad was ill, my mom demonstrated a profound understanding of him.

As much as is humanly possible.

One day…what day of the week it was – I do not recall. With the heaviness of the times, Mondays became Thursdays and Fridays became Tuesdays. Indeed, the days congealed into one, and each carried a decade of heaviness. But on that fateful day, at 5 a.m., my mom and I completed our usual morning routine.

Each day, I picked her up from the hospital in the wee hours of the morning, brought her home to get ready for the day, and then we returned to the hospital. – Those daily trips needed to happen within 90 minutes. Why? Because my dad desperately needed my mom to be there, as her presence was critical to his recovery. Of course, he did not say so explicitly. He did not need to. When what is implicit is felt, the message becomes explicit and is understood without words. But that day, I saw the other side.

Love takes two!

Standing in her room, I looked at my irreplaceable mom, who is a naturally slim lady, and said, “Mom, oh my gosh! You are barely a hundred pounds now!” Without a word, she resumed packing her suitcase, the one she took to the hospital! But I had more to say! With utter fear in my voice, I said, “Mama, I do not want us to bring Dad home, only to turn around and take you where we brought him from. I need you to be well. Looking at Dad, the man you built your life with, you speak the language of love as if it were the only one you were fluent in. And I need you to remember that I need and love you too.”

Instantly, I touched my kind mom’s heart. However, I didn’t want us to fall into a tear-filled moment: We needed to rush back to the hospital before the doctors did their rounds. So, without wasting time, I left her room; she finished getting ready, and neither of us brought it up again until my dad was discharged and they returned home.
While my dad was in the hospital for six weeks, my mom was always there. But it wasn’t just her. Love was also there: Flowing from her, reminding him to breathe, inspiring him to hope, and helping him take each step forward. Indeed, true love is the elixir to adversity. 

For more on true love, check out the series, Love Myths.

For you and to you,
Aké

P.S. The accompaniment for this piece is a song whose lyrics speak to the moment: When I Look at You.

Image credit: Pexels: Esma Bartin