“My ability to see love in the world creates more love in the world.”
Laura Lane from ‘I Touch the Heavens’
This week, to follow up on what I shared last week about Love, I thought I would share an excerpt from my book “Two Mothers One Prayer”. This is from Chapter 11 – Love. It includes some of my very favourite quotes.
French philosopher Yann Dall’Aglio’s definition of love speaks to me: “Love is an expression of tenderness.” To me, tenderness is about recognizing that something or someone is fragile. It is about being able to hold or embrace them in a manner that understands and accepts that if you treat them too roughly, they could break— physically or emotionally.
We are more readily able to accept the fragility of children and treat them tenderly, with great love and affection, eager to protect them from the world. When a child develops cancer, we are even more aware of their fragility and it becomes an opportunity to pour out our love on that child.
I cherish the moments I had when I could hold Celeste, cuddle her, sing to her, and love her. It was indeed a very tender time. During Celeste’s first round of chemo and her transfer from a regular room to her isolation, no, her healing room, as her blood counts dropped, we were discouraged from contaminating her bed with germs. That’s hard for a parent to hear: Don’t sit on your sick child’s bed.
But that didn’t last long and I was climbing onto her bed again, holding and cuddling as much as possible. It was healing for both of us.
Love is a powerful emotion. It has the ability to create physiological changes in the body.
Love and hope and positive thoughts all have the ability to alter the body’s neurochemistry. Dr. Jerome Groopman in The Anatomy of Hope explains how belief and expectation are able to “block pain by releasing the brain’s endorphins and enkephalins, thereby mimicking the effects of morphine.”
He goes on to explain in detail the substantiating research of the Benedetti experiment performed by Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti at the University of Turin in Italy. Numerous studies since the 1970s have established the link between love and the release of endorphins. From the research of Candace Pert and Nancy Ostrowski in 1976, psychiatrist Michael Liebowitz in 1983, and physician Theresa Crenshaw in 1996, there is evidence that love is more than just a warm fuzzy.
But any mother can tell you that: the fastest way to ease the pain of your child is to love and hold that child.
What is the first thing we do when our child falls down and scrapes her knee? We pick her up, hug and kiss her, and then apply the bandage. Love makes it “all better.”
When Celeste was diagnosed, she was showered with love and affection. When we renamed her isolation room her healing room, I wrote all over the sliding glass door the names of all her friends and family who were loving and supporting her from a distance. Even though they couldn’t come visit, I wanted her to know she was constantly surrounded with love. It was the same idea with the sticky notes right after her first surgery. I never wanted her to doubt how much she was loved. It became one of my biggest priorities.
Loving your child comes easily to most parents. Most of us don’t need a reminder; we’re doing it naturally. However, many mothers forget how to love themselves.
That is where I really like Yann Dall’Aglio’s reminder that love is about tenderness. If we can begin to recognize our own fragility during this stressful time, we can be loving, kind, and patient with ourselves, our spouses, and our other children.
The diagnosis and treatment of cancer is a difficult situation for everyone. Stress is at an all-time high. This is when we need the greatest amounts of love, patience, and gratitude. This is where our true strength and character need to shine through.
Leo Buscaglia, the author of Love and the professor of Love 101 at University of Southern California, makes the observation that “Love requires one to be strong.” He shares that “It is always from strength that gentleness arises,” from our courage to be willing to be vulnerable.
I learned a great deal about love reading Og Mandino’s book The Greatest Salesman in the World and the second scroll, which reminds us of the miracles and blessings that come when we are willing to say “I will greet this day with love in my heart.”
Sometimes it is not easy to do that when we are tired and our child is sick.
Dave Blanchard, in his book Today I Begin a New Life, analyzes that wisdom by explaining the different forms of love. The word charity that we use today comes from the Greek word agape, which means “a heightened level of awareness.” I have heard Blanchard explain further that it is “to see someone as God sees them.”
When we can see everyone the way God sees them, all their frailties and weaknesses as well as their strengths, we can learn to treat them tenderly. We must also view ourselves from God’s perspective: lovingly, tenderly, and patiently. We can do the same with our spouses and other children or family members.
Charity is also known as the pure love of Christ. It is how Jesus Christ saw and treated everyone. He saw them as God saw them and treated them with the utmost respect, love, and tenderness. The apostle Paul in the New Testament in the Bible explains that charity “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:7 (KJV)
Charity is the third Pillar of Islam or Zakat. In Judaism, it is referred to as Tzedakah. In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, it is similarly known as Dana, the practice of unattached and unconditional generosity.
That kind of love, or charity, heals and transforms.
When you love something or someone it transforms that thing or person. When you allow yourself to be loved, it transforms you. When we root ourselves so that we are experiencing love on all levels—feeling it in our body and heart, accepting love, surrounded by love, generating love—then we are giving as well as receiving at the same time that we are connected to God.
But we have to remember that we can’t give something until we have fully received it. That is why it is so important to allow ourselves to be loved.
Now what does that really mean? First, we have to understand that the moment we love someone, we are no longer judging that person; and the moment we are judging someone, we are no longer loving him or her. “If you judge people, you have no time to love them,” Mother Teresa said.
Brené Brown does a great job explaining our own difficulties in accepting help and love, and it stems from our own self-judgment or lack of self-love. On Oprah’s Lifeclass, Brown spelled it out to the audience.
“When you cannot accept and ask for help without self judgment, then when you offer other people help, you are always doing so with judgment. Because you have attached judgment to asking for help.
“When you extract worthiness for helping people, that’s judgment. When you don’t extract worthiness and you think, ‘I’m just helping you because one day I’m gonna need help’—that’s connection. That’s vulnerability.”
If you are having difficulty allowing others to help you during your hour of need, it may be because of the judgment you have placed on others when you have helped them or judgment about your own worthiness in receiving help.
Courageously pull down the wall called judgment and begin tenderly loving you and those around you.
In this stressful time, you need love. You need to accept love and support. Go back to what I shared earlier about Ho’oponopono. Have a silent conversation with God and say, “I’m sorry I have been stuck in a feeling of judgment. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you!”
Keep saying it until you are finally filled with feelings of love and gratitude.
Gratitude is the final peace of the puzzle. It is so important to have gratitude and love and appreciation for all those people supporting you and your child at this time.
For all the doctors, wonderful nurses who are there day and night, the multitude of support staff, hospital staff, social workers, chaplains, clergy, church groups, friends, neighbours, and family who are there to help with everything, feel the gratitude deep within you.
It may be impossible to thank every one of them, but if you can feel that gratitude in your heart for all they do, remembering their sacrifices, it will make some days easier to bear.
There will be days when people make mistakes, but if you have an attitude of gratitude, a bigger perspective, you can be more forgiving and loving. Think of how much your child loves and is grateful for you and all you do. Begin to feel the same love and gratitude for those around you. Our children really are our teachers. Celeste has taught me.
I truly believe that the children who are diagnosed with cancer are some of the wisest, sweetest, strongest, and most loving children. They have gained a bigger perspective of the world in such a short time. They become wise beyond their years.
Another thing we can learn to do is to be more grateful for every day we have with our children. None of us ever knows how long we have on Earth, so it is imperative that we live and love each moment we have. For some of us, our children’s days do become numbered and we learn how to make the best of every moment we have left with them.
One of the gifts of our experience was that we learned a deeper meaning of love, a deeper way to love. As a mom, I realized it was not my job to only give love, but to also receive it. To learn to love and accept myself without judgment was part of the process.
My readings, my interactions with so many loving people, my time in prayer, and certainly my daughter, taught me more about love than I ever could have witnessed prior to Celeste’s getting cancer.
It may not come easily on some days to greet each day with love, but when you do, you will feel the reward. Love does make us feel better, from the inside out. You can read the studies, but the only research that matters is what you experience for yourself.
Love is an expression of tenderness. Practice it in all ways. Of course you will be tender and loving to your child. Express that same love to the rest of the family, your spouse, and, most importantly, yourself.
There is so much love around you. Let it in. Let it ease the burden. Let it envelope you and hold you ever so tenderly as you journey through these days.
“No matter what happens, Love always stays.”
In what ways can you be more loving to yourself and treat yourself more tenderly through difficult times? Who can you show more gratitude to for supporting you along the way?
“Love requires one to be strong. It is always from strength that gentleness arises.”
Leo Buscaglia