“Father, why do we love?” His son asked while they waiting for the first fish to bite the bait. The Father knew that his answer, he could make or break his son. Before he could answer him, the Father first gathered his thoughts.
The Father looked deep into the lake beneath them. He was a man who had many stories to tell about love. As a man over half a centennial, his affair with love has been a long and adventurous one. Within the subtle ripples of the lake, he remembered his first taste of love. He was 16 and the young gal, The Gal of His Firsts he calls her, was 15. Indeed this was his first true love. He loved everything about her and through her explored all the pleasures love could possibly provide- but also all the evils. He had a woman before The Gal of His Firsts but he never knew he was in love at the time. He was 13 at the time and she was also 13 but a grade lower. This gal he called The Lost One.
The Lost One gave him the perception of love. Even in his old age, he still can not hold his wife confidently because of The Lost One. There was a moment in his time with The Lost One in which she never allowed him to touch her. And when he did, he remembers the cold expression on her face. A face that communicated clearly that he was breaching barriers. He never understood why. Why was she like this to him? Why was that she never allowed him to touch her yet, the male best-friend of hers gets allowed that privilege? The same best-friend who would later replace his position in her life. This is a mystery that still haunts him to this day. He first felt affection when he was 13 years old. At the age of 13 and half, he learnt that a woman who has fallen for your spell, can also fall for the spell of another- even while she’s under yours.
For three years he lead a campaign against women. Some thought he was homosexual the way he confidently spoke against women and their treacherous ways. He wanted nothing to do with women until he met The Gal of His Firsts. A tear rolled down his cheek while a smile cracked his aged face. He remembers clearly everything about her. Down to the details of what she smelt like the first time he kissed her. She was the bearer of his heart for more than half a decade. She was everything to him. She took him through the deepest hells yet she could take him to the heavens and back. She could be the gnashing of teeth that would devour his soul yet she could also be the milk and honey of the Promised Land. She was everything that love could ever be. Through her he committed the same feat. He realised that he could love a person with all he is and also despise a person with all he is. Through her he saw that he could hold the heart of a person in his hand and with a flicker of the finger, can destroy it.
There is one however who he has loved and still loves. This was after The Gal of His Firsts. Unlike The Lost One, when he broke up with The Gal of His Firsts he realised he knew nothing about love and how he reacts to women when in love. He entered a stage where he courted different women in hopes to understand himself better. He was 21 at the time. A long time it has been but he remembers this period vividly. Through this period, he discovered what he liked and disliked in a woman. How he reacts to the women he liked and the women he didn’t like. Unlike sowing wild oats, what he was doing was planting flowers that he grew in his own garden. His own garden that he hoped it will be a safe haven and paradise for when he met Ms. Right. During this period he did meet such a woman. A woman he calls Ms. Prototype.
Ms. Prototype was perfect. She was intelligent, loving, caring and gorgeous. Unlike the two women he loved before, Ms. Prototype was loyal to him. Something he never experienced before. He could write a book about Ms. Prototype. He sometimes fears that if Ms. Prototype were to call him, he would leave his wife for her. She is the only woman he ever shed tears for when she left. He now looked under the heavens as to wonder what happened. He felt a rush in his heart. ‘Why didn’t I fight harder?’ ‘Why did I lose patience with her?’ What if after what if led from a single tear breaking from the corners of his eye, to his cheeks becoming the banks for the river of tears that followed. He wondered if being married and having a child was from love or from hoping Ms. Prototype would get jealous and want him back. For after they broke up when he was 24, he set out to be the best man he could possibly be. At 51, he had amassed great wealth and had many estates all the over the land. Secretly he was building himself to get back with Ms. Prototype. But this never happened. She moved to a different country and it became difficult to keep in touch with her. Ms. Prototype, the one he always loved.
Having gathered his thoughts he looked at his son. Gazed deeply in his eyes and placed his hand of his shoulder. With the aged smile that cracked his face that was now glistening from dried tears on his cheeks, he answered and said:
“My Son, we love- so we become strong.”