What can you say about a forty-something-year-old man who died? That he was beautiful and complex? That he loved painting, the Blues, and me? If those words ring familiar, it’s because I borrowed them, in a modified version, from Love Story, the 1970 film classic starring Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal. The main characters in the movie come from totally different backgrounds, but they find a love in each other that rivals all other loves. In a Hollywood ending typical of the era, their love is doomed; she dies before they get their happily-ever-after. My love story begins and ends in a similar fashion.  .:read more:.

  I met him while I was a graduate student at UGA. We loved each other almost instantly, but his lifestyle made a long-term relationship impossible. He broke up with me (for my own good, he would say), and I did not see him again until 2005. Just like in the fairytales I once read as a child, we fell in love all over again. I was finally about to get my happily-ever-after; we had found our way back to each other, so of course this love was meant to be. Instead, this man I loved unconditionally and without doubt died of cancer on April 1, 2006. Grief consumed me as I lingered between consciousness and unconsciousness, between a reality and an uber-reality.   However, unlike Oliver, O’Neal’s Love Story character who walks out into snowy Central Park to contemplate what might have been, I moved beyond the what ifs and chose to believe that I will love like that again.

Perhaps the romantic but pragmatic poet in me fuels this delusion I have that we all get multiple chances at love. We all get what I refer to as our One. Moreover, we get more than just one One.  Who can afford to believe that love comes around only once? Human beings are so fallible and inconsistent; we mess up love and opportunities for love on a whim. The universe must take into consideration our propensity for screwing up, overlooking, and misunderstanding love. So once I stopped feeling sorry for myself when my One died, I took an emotional inventory and realized that what I was left with was more love- not less. My capacity for love had grown exponentially; my heart was so big, so full. How did that happen? What was I supposed to do with all of that love in the midst of mourning this man I had loved since forever?

I tried to channel that love into poems and stories, but I could not find the words to describe a feeling so transcendent. I sang Billie Holiday, Sade, and Mary J, but even singing gave me no solace. I ignored my heart and poured my energy into work and raising my children. I was not ready to love. Moreover, what man could love me back when I was still such an emotional wreck? One night after putting the kids to bed and sipping on a bottle of Riesling, I sat at the kitchen table with pen and paper in hand and began to write. After three hours of brainstorming and three glasses of wine, I concluded that this abundance of love with which my One had left me was not a burden; instead, it was a gift and an opportunity to know even more love in my lifetime. Love does not die; it lingers and builds. Love begets more love. The premise sounds simple, I know. However, when humans are coping with death or other types of loss, we tend to feel depleted and deflated. We believe that love is the source of our pain; if we avoid love, we will never hurt again. The opposite is true. The only cure for pain is love.

Today I am petal-open as Zora Neale Hurston, the famous Harlem Renaissance author, would say. I am open to love and all of its possibilities. My love story has not ended; instead, it has only just begun. While Oliver in the movie believes that his chance at love has died with his Jenny, I believe like Janie in Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, that we must continue to search for our Teacakes, our best loves. We must not martyr ourselves or deny ourselves the opportunities for new loves. If we do so, we miss out on much more than a relationship; we miss out on life itself.

Dr. Seretha D. Williams, PH.D

center stage magazine

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