Love any Which Ways

I was overseeing my son’s homework when my eyes fell on an article titled “Love and Lovers”. It made me grin. How many of them actually would understand that one. Well there was a time when I would swear by the article had I come across a similar write up then, but not today after all these years that drifted by, the testing times that tempered me.
For us, ours was the perfect marriage- the perfect match, the perfect love, the perfect spouse, the perfect union. Our families knew otherwise. They could pile rosters of differences, dissimilarities, “blind in love” attributes, and all other distinguished traits- save perfect. Anyways, we saw the nuptial rituals through and were then emphatically declared man and wife. It was not before long we realised it would not work out. Right from cuisines to bed linen we found our choices varied and since each of us was as obstinate as the other we replaced our shared study with two single desk corners, “our” cups- one red another black, “our” bed sheets- one white another gray.
We sensed a child would make our life simple, recover our lost love, and get “us” together for one strong reason. A baby we concluded was the panacea for all “our” woes. I remember vividly it was a glowing Tuesday afternoon when the doctor broke the news that God never wanted me to experience labour and that he wisely saw to it. A baby I shall never have I know, but a husband I would lose was something that dawned upon me later. He never let me complete- my part of the argument or my living. For him it was over eons ago. He never felt the need to bear me any longer. I will never be the wife he wanted, a woman well sound- financially and maternally.
I felt like a piece of junk. Polished for display till my limits tested and then suddenly when my value came crashing down, when I truly needed emotional support, my service was no longer needed. Before he uttered the ultimatum I moved out- out of his safely guarded terrain of which I was never the gate keeper, out of the family who treated me like a pariah in to a world where I started afresh. However the thought I could never have a family, a baby to cuddle, supervise studies, read out books to, hug the little self tight, and scalded my visceral soul.
One day, while shopping I accidentally bumped into an old friend of mine who had adopted her second child. It’s then that I realised that giving birth to a kid might get you close to God but adopting another makes you as good as him if not any less. After a few detailed talks with her and weeks of rigorous pondering I made up my mind- to invite a little being in my life, to bid my blighted woes a final farewell. I filed my papers and soon I became a single parent. It is really amusing to recollect that when happiness was just a few thoughts and a signature away it took me two full years of harrowing solitary existence to realise it.
My son was seven months old when I adopted him. He filled my voids and my white walls with bright crayons, my silence with chaotic chuckles, my neat room with silly insane toys. He taught me that he lived without knowing his parents, having no loved ones, have no security, yet having many reasons in life for a little smile and a lot more mischief. He taught me that my life was far less complicated than his. Understanding- that he was, because he asked less and observed more. I do not know who to thank. His parents for leaving him all alone in this wretched world, God for not showing any justice to this tiny being or worse to my earlier life that brought me to the brink of insanity from where I worked my way to existence.
For me he is my life. The reason I look forward to when I wind up my work early, when I rent a movie, when I get an ice cream packed. His naive questions make me feel wanted reinstating the fact that a small being in this world depends on my answers. He makes feel valuable, respected and adored. When I watch him fall asleep on his fairy tale book I realise there might be a reason why his eyes keep searching for answers when they move behind his closed eyelids because when they open they contain the twinkle which tells me he doesn’t need the answers anymore.