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CSUDH Habermas UWP

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: April 9, 2001
Latest update: April 9, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org

Love Is Not A Lonely Thing

by Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata
Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata, and Individual Contributors, April 2001.
"Fair Use" encouraged.

We tend to think of love as love between two people, or, at best, a small group, usually the family. We forget that love is there for us, as much as we let ourselves receive.

On Monday, April 9, 2001, a Mother wrote to jeanne:

"I love you . . ." struck a part of me I forgot about when it comes to my son. My second child (out of 3) has a box full of emotional problems. We have tried for years to save this child and nothing we do seems to get through. He now lives in a home in California, and he feels as though I have abandonded him. The poem, "I love you . . ." fits how I feel for him. I will be in court this week for him, and he will be there as angry as ever, but I will always be there, because he does need a hand. He's only 12 years old. I work with other children in afterschool projects, and that work is dear to my heart. But I am sometimes ashamed of myself because I help kids just like my son, yet I can't save my own son.

On Monday, April 9, 2001, jeanne responded:

Yes, Armand's poem, "I Love You . . . is lovely. It reminds us that love is healing. And it also reminds us that we need to love ourselves, as he repeats this poem to himself, in the mirror. The infant learns to coo like the mother, and soothes itself with the cooing. So also must we soothe ourselves and those we love with the constant reminder that love rises above the rigors of daily life.

Postmodern, postcolonial, and critical theory remind us that the "Other" plays a significant interdependent role in our own identities, and we in theirs. Because all this does depend on what Durkheim would have called "social facts," the love we share with "Others" may well come back to our loved ones, even when we cannot reach them.

Love is not a lonely thing . . .
by jeanne

love is hard
oh, it's great
when you're loved in return
and it's easy
when things go smoothly

but it hurts
when things go wrong
for the one you love
when you can't make it right
when the world interferes
and life happens

then we need to love
in the faith
that a loving world
loves with us

loving others,
when and where
and however we can
vests others with the love
to touch those dear to us
whom we cannot reach.

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