Some Parts of Love and Other Words Book are Highlighted -
My dad was a lot taller than my mother – I mean a lot. He was six foot five
and my mom was just over five foot three. Danish big and Brazilian petite.
When they met, she didn’t speak a word of English. But by the time she
died, when I was ten, it was almost as if they’d created their own language.
I remember the way he would hug her when he got home from work. He
would wrap his arms all the way around her shoulders, press his face into
her hair while his body curved over hers. His arms became a set of
parentheses bracketing the sweetest secret phrase.
I would disappear into the background when they touched like this, feeling
like I was witnessing something sacred.
It never occurred to me that love could be anything other than all-
consuming. Even as a child, I knew I never wanted anything less.
But then what began as a cluster of malignant cells killed my mother, and I
didn’t want any of it, ever again. When I lost her, it felt like I was drowning
in all the love I still had that could never be given. It filled me up, choked
me like a
rag doused in kerosene, spilled out in tears and screams and in heavy,
pulsing silence. And somehow, as much as I hurt, I knew it was even worse
for Dad.
I always knew that he would never fall in love again after Mom. In that
way, my dad was always easy to understand. He was straightforward and
quiet:
he walked quietly, spoke quietly; even his anger was quiet. It was his love
that
was booming. His love was a roaring, vociferous bellow. And after he loved
Mom with the strength of the sun, and after the cancer killed her with a
gentle gasp, I figured he would be hoarse for the rest of his life and
wouldn’t ever want
another woman the way he’d wanted her.
