An Idea of Love

If I must give you an idea of love, I have no other place to look for it but within my life. Today is Monday. Going through the day was like riding a roller coaster. It was full of ups and downs, illusions and disillusions, just like life. After that, I still believe in my aptitude for spotting love within this bad day of mine. Right now, night has fallen. I’ve lit three candles and placed them on top of the desk in which I write from. The candlelight create dancing shadows on the walls and keyboard. The air conditioning is not buzzing, ‘cause my mother is sleeping without snoring. So, there’s no noise, just pure, deep, utter silence. I believe I can spot love at this dark hour. The inspiration must hit me any time now. Ideas are not tangible like buckets of water; therefore, to find an idea of love I must look inside my heart, eliminating all the abstractions and going for an specific which can be easily felt. So I sit and think of an idea of love.
I am wishing very intently to do something. I wish for it so hard that I feel I am being punched in my chest. While I think of an idea of love, I am wishing I could place my head in my grandmother’s lap. I wish her fingers could stroke my long, brown hair very gently. Those fingers of hers with short nails would then play with my wild curls and pick out the lighter streaks of hair, burned by the sun. It’s been thirteen years, since the last time I saw my grandmother. Yet, I get a warm feeling all over me every time we meet in this manner. It feels as if a wave of sun was bathing my insides and my chest could open and give birth to a rose. It sounds crazy. It almost seems like a surrealistic painting. This is love to me. It is an overflowing feeling that brings me not joy, nor grief. It calms me down. The mere thought of her is so powerful that it leaves no room for regrets, tears or sadness. She is not here anymore, but my love doesn’t leave room for tears. There's only space for this feeling and that’s what I consider love.
I have wished many times for many things that would bring her closer to me. I have wished to hear advice, to be with her for one more day, among other wishes. But tonight, I just wish we could sit in complete silence, in a silence as the deep as the one in my room right now, while I put my head in her lap and close my eyes. I get a feeling of well being and bliss. I feel the relief of my total bareness, because I am not wearing self-preservations veils. This has to be love, because I can just feel her and I do not need to touch her, or put my head in her lap. This energy must be love.
Yesterday would have been my grandmother’s birthday. My mother puts white and pink roses in a vase. We always dedicate flowers to her on her birthday. I have no idea where that tradition comes from. Maybe it’s Afro-Cuban; maybe it's my mother's. But I look at them now and I think of love. I hear the word love and I associate it with my grandmother. And then it occurs to me, I always remember grandma on nights like this one, maybe because the sky looks the way my soul feels, dark. Maybe because on nights like this even if the sky is light my soul feels dark.
My grandmother’s love seems then to come to me and save me from sadness. Her presence comes to me at unexpected times. I even have come to think she is under my skin, already a part of me, and her energy is all around me, in and outside. I can just be quiet and talk to her, or write her letters, or stand by her grave telling her about the family, school, boyfriend love and all kinds of things, but I can’t forget I haven’t put my head on my grandma’s lap in thirteen years and I’ve needed that plenty times.
Then, I guess that when you love someone you find a way of loving him or her and nothing can get in your way, not even death. This is my way of loving her after death. 'Cause I realized that love doesn’t go away. You cannot choose when to start loving someone and when to stop. I can't help but to love her every single day, every single night.