It is so nice to read something about a deep and performative love; not simply the posing of New York singles looking for intimacy but resistant of commitment; but a story of a life transformed through the daily enactment of loving responsibilities toward others.  That is what Carolyn Megan achieves in her piece this week. 

    Her sister has been diagnosed with cancer and the treatments are not working.  Her niece and nephew thus face the worst kind of loss and she finds herself taking on more and more of a mothering role for them.  She is torn.  She had already decided that she did not want children, and now life has brought them to her, in a way, regardless of her wishes.   It is obvious that she is doing the right thing, allowing herself to be swept along by circumstance, and she honestly tells us of her ambivalence:

Yet the very concern that informed my decision not to have children has
come true: all my energy, love and passion are focused on my niece and
nephew, and I mourn the loss of a part of myself that has been pushed
aside.

     Yet despite her misgivings, she follows through with her niece and nephew, and discovers something new about herself.  When hugging her nephew as he has just learned of his mother’s inevitable death, she writes:

I walk over and hug him; he leans up against me, letting out stifled
sobs, his arms still crossed. In that moment some part of my heart
opens and a new love pours out, not a recalibration or reconfiguring of
the love I have, but a new well tapped. No separation of myself with
him. And in that moment I think: I will do anything for you.

    What a beautiful and powerful thing, something most parents can immediately recognize.

     And, from my Chinese philosophy point of view, it is a marvelous combination of Taoist and Confucian sentiments.

     From a Taoist perspective, Megan’s story confirms the idea: "in yielding there is completion."   She had quite purposefully planned her life without children.  She was happy that way and there is no reason to doubt that happiness she felt.  But, then, an unexpected tragedy comes along and she finds she must follow a different path, which leads her away from the life she had chosen.  She responds as best she can, at times feeling lost and uncertain.   This line  really connected with me:

During this time I’ve found myself moving into situations with a calm
parentlike demeanor while admitting on the inside that I have no idea
what I’m doing.

     When Aidan, our first child was born, I also calmly moved into the new role of father, with virtually no real preparation or understanding what that role would entail.   And when Aidan turned out to be profoundly disabled, something we discovered when he was ten days old, I abruptly had to admit that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. 

     But she gives herself over to the new conditions and, as the earlier quote suggests, finds a new reservoir of love inside herself.  Now, from a Taoist perspective it is probably not necessary (even though I would personally say that it is) to say that this new love is better or more genuine than the love she had been experiencing before.  The main point is that it is a real and abiding love and that by giving up her conception of what her life should be to the unfolding realities before her, she is able to discover this love: in yielding there is completion.

    The Confucian connection here is obvious: the focus of her love, the daily work of her love, is aimed at nurturing her connection to those closest to her.  This is precisely what Confucius means by "Duty" and, as he would tell us, it is through the careful, ritualistic, performance of duty that we find Humanity, the highest moral good.  A Confucian would certainly say that the new love she has found is better than what might have come before.  Indeed, a Confucian would say that it is only through that sort of deep and personal and fully engaged love that she can truly find herself.  She may have thought she knew who she was before, but now she has come into her own in ways she could never have anticipated  – that is a Confucian perspective.

     But regardless of Confucian and Taoist views, Megan’s love is a love to celebrate.  It is a love that may be more widespread than we realize, the stuff of myriad family ties; but it is something that we may too often ignore because it is not as flashy and fancy as celebrity romance.  It is a shame we only have the one word – love – to apply to such a wide range of circumstances.  If I was Emperor of English, I would reserve that word, that powerful and passionate word, for precisely what Megan is talking about.  All the rest is fluff.