On loving, always ~ Malinda Words

Whitney Houston’s 'I will always love you,' is a classic letting-go song. No in-denial in it. No anger or thoughts of revenge. No bargaining, no if-thens or if-not-why-nots. No talk of starting over, a second chance, forgives and forgets or pledges to do things different this time. Sadness, but no depression. Acceptance is what it is.

Of course, grieving, whichever form it may take, is not a linear process that goes from denial to acceptance. There could be closure, but then again no one can say with finality that there’s no going back. Human beings have memories. We revisit. And even from the distances yielded by time we can and do relive; at some point in revisitation we encounter and embrace ‘damn,’ weep, sigh and entertain what-ifs and maybes. Narratives, in short, don’t necessarily end when chapters are closed. Acceptance does not forbid grief or grieving.

Someone becomes someone else’s past tense, but that doesn’t necessarily work both ways, especially not when the relationship was about an experienced moment or present tense unutterably beautiful or held that promise and a long tomorrow in which no other name could even remotely make sense.

Love and romance: some believe, like Pablo Neruda did, that it is certainly beautiful but only at the beginning. We use those words and somehow feel compelled to use them about people we are with even though they’ve changed as we have, even though warts never imagined or anticipated have become visible or have, as the case may be, materialised. It may not be the love of those first soft petalled days, but neither is it something absolutely devoid of tender feelings.

It could be the same with those who made us their past tense and who, in time, we’ve added to our past tense. Regrets there could be, for nostalgia is always a heartbeat away. And yet, we’ve accepted: that which was and which was projected is no more and has moved out of the realm of possibility.

What is most memorable about the song is this line: ‘I hope that you have all that you ever dreamed of, I do wish you joy, I wish you happiness, but above all this, I wish you love.’ And yet, ‘I love you, I will always love you.’

That is the expression of fidelity to the quality of muditha in the sathara brahma viharana or the ‘four divine abodes,’ the other three being loving-kindness, compassion and equanimity.

But what is this ‘love’ spoken about in this song? Is it the romantic love related to shared lives, relationships and planned futures or something else? The lyricist would know. While Whitney Houston’s soul-ballad arrangement for the film ‘The Bodyguard’ is better known, the original was written and recorded in 1973 by Dolly Parton. Apparently it was written as a farewell to her business partner and mentor Porter Wagoner, following Dolly’s decision to pursue a solo career. Nothing romantic about it, at least not in the classical meaning of the word.

Songs don’t belong only to lyricists and singers, though. And it is therefore a love song. It is about heartbreak and an assertion of the everlasting. The lyricist doesn’t elaborate on the word ‘love,’ doesn’t tell us what kind of love and whether or not that kind of love that inspired the song would remain intact in depth and nature of feeling across a lifetime.

It is undeniable that the sentiments are soft, they are devoid of anger and that the vibes are all positive, all good. If we take it as a heartbreak song or rather a post-heartbreak song, the wounds and hurt notwithstanding, what’s left, as the song goes, are memories which although bitter are nevertheless sweet as well.

Love, if it is not the kind envisaged, is too often footnoted, scorned or erased from minds and hearts. However, if you live to be 93 there will be many moments where old loves will give a kind of warmth that will be embraced as blessings. No rancour, no regrets, no need to anticipate with relish or foreboding any number of futures that can only be too heavy for weary and ancient shoulders. They know. We know. No gripping hard, no casual rejection. A caressing, then. As soft-petalled as the blush of love’s first flush.

Just a different flower. Love, still. Loving. Always.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

21 April 2023

On loving, always

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