El Amor Es Mas Fuerte / Love is Stronger
Two millennia shares with us a tale of a father and two sons. One is the older son following in his fathers footsteps respectfully attending the family business. The other is the younger, desiring a different path and without as was the custom in that culture, the patience to serve the father and family estate for the father’s lifetime and then at his father’s passing receive his due inheritance. Instead the son went to the father and demanded, “Father, as you have always claimed that youth is wasted on the young, give me my inheritance. I have a life to live.” Despite the inheritance the father did not object or refuse as would have been his right. Instead the father divided his estate to give the younger son his portion.
Not mentioned in this often told story is the wife and mother. As could be expected she questioned the fathers action, “Papi no! Lo conoces. No es como nuestro mayor. Sabes que hará alguna locura o incluso algo peor con el dinero. Es ingenuo. El mundo no es un lugar seguro. ¿Le preguntaste qué hará con el dinero? ¿Le preguntaste adónde irá? ¿Por qué no darle un poco? Vea lo que hará con él. Hablaré con él. No le des lo suficiente para hacer nada o ir a donde desee.”
The father listened to his wife. The son listened to his mother. And then as a man of his word, the father did what he agreed to do and gave the share to the son. And then as a man with a purpose of not yet known benevolence the son took his share, packed his bags and despite his mother’s tears and without remorse, departed not only his mothers house, but her city and went to a far, far away land as if he were on a journey to find sanity in the pleasure of life away, from a woman he loved but now sought to treat her as if he was tearing himself from a cruel, cold heart. (CLICK BLUE HYPERLINKS TO SOUNDTRACK)
There in that far, far away land, the son did not consider, nor did he apply the example of the blessings that were lived in his fathers house. He did not invest in a business, or studies. Instead he engaged in riotous living, with all of those similarly inclined for whatever consenting intoxication and debauchery they could find. And for this the son is to be commended, for unlike many in our generation, he went to a far, far away land and did not engage with such people and in such conduct in the country or city of his parents were chattering neighbors would whisper of his indiscretions and a distraught mother would go and find him in his drunken state saying, “Para esto. Ven a casa. Se lo diré a tu padre. Él vendrá a buscarte”.
Yes, the son had the respect for his father, mother and family, to not subject his father experiencing a wife, returning homelooking for a son who swore at her in his drunkenness, and whose whores mocked her saying, “Vete a casa anciana. ¿No ves que nos estamos divirtiendo? Él no es un bebé. Él es un hombre ahora. Él está con nosotros ahora. ¿O tal vez le gustaría unirse a nosotros y tomar una copa usted misma?
The father, saddened, but having accepted the departure of his son to a far away land, continued on with his remaining children and business affairs but at night he heard the anxious, tearful whispers of every mother who has ever faced this, “¿Dónde puede estar ahora? ¿Qué está haciendo? ¿Áun está vivo? ¿Está muerto? Por favor, déjame ir a buscarlo. Incluso sólo para traer su cuerpo para enterrarlo.”
But in tragic reasonableness, the father knew there was no way to send for, or to find a son who sent no message advising where, in what far away land or city he could be found. And so there was no way for the mother, if she had known where her son might be to pack a bag and set out on a journey, not knowing exactly where she would go, or what horror she might find. So instead she cried as the sun set and the moon rose. She cried as the sun rose and the moon set. And, at any moment of the day, she could feel a thought or recall a memory that would water her eyes. But like many womens’ tragedies and suffering, there are no hero’s words that can relieve a mothers suffering and no kiss to take away a woman's pain. Yet he continued to stand by her and one morning he said, “You are suffering as if the worst has happened and you will never see him again. Feel your grief. Embrace your loss. Hope only for acceptance of what is today and whatever will come. From this moment, not a day will go by that we will not think of him. But we will not speak of him together. When you think of him in the morning, take your thought to mass. There In your thoughts, speak of him and speak to him. When you feel the tears in the mid-day, take your heart to mass. In your heart, speak of him and speak to him. Before the sun sets each night, go to mass. Feel him in your mind and feel him in your heart that he is in the place and will always be in your heart and in whatever other place where he is called to be.
“Si” is often the most precious word a man can hear from a woman. And the wife and mother acted in accordance with her word and she began her next day at mass, with thoughts of her son. At noon when thoughts and tears came to her eyes, she returned to mass. At sunset she entered mass and spoke to her son as if he were in exactly the place he needed to be and doing precisely what he needed to do. After forty days of mass, the woman spoke to her husband saying, “Todavía siento dolor. Todavía tengo lágrimas. Pero ahora, cuando pienso en él, también siento que en este momento que él está donde se supone que debe estar y sin miedo, mi corazón puede seguir adelante.”
And while a mother prayed in tears a young man arrived at the city of his dreams he heard his siren song. And in that place, away from a family’s reputation, worry and moral sense the young man lived every passion and wanton desire with his new comrades in arms who were all too glad to share in his inheritance. At one or more moments in time, the young man took stock of his dwindling inheritance and thought to himself that he might invest a portion of it in an actual endeavor, to sustain his future. But he did not. There was always another glass of pink champagne on ice and another Tiffany twisted woman to pursue and to secure his attention from any gainful much less moral endeavor.
And in his drunken state with almost all of his money gone he went to the keeper of his suite and explained that funds were low and that while he did not know how, he would swear upon the name of his family, if the innkeeper would but give him a little credit, his intent would be to pay. To this the innkeeper raised an eyebrow and looked at his small son standing near. To his fathers look the small boy replied with the words of the debtor's mother, “Solo los niños y los borrachos dicen la verdad.”
The boy's father reached and took the key to the suite from the man’s hand, motioned to the exit and said, “Go, we will pack your things and set them outside for you.” The debtor quietly sat on the bench outside while the young lad packed the room and delivered each bag to the bench.
Sitting outside and sobering rapidly under the midday sun, the man noticed a young woman but a few feet away. Standing tall but dressed in rags, she stood by the street to be gazed up and down with some men’s twisted necks, or to have women quickly turn their eyes and tilt their noses in the air. Finally one man stopped and began to drunkenly abuse her, first with words and then with an unexpected slap that knocked her to the ground. Her plight suddenly sobered our man on the bench and in a second he was between them pushing the drunken abuser into the street and lifting the young woman onto the place where he had sat moments before. But then it began to rain. And then it began to pour.
The innkeeper stood in the doorway. A short distance away was a large tree that would offer some cover from the rain. Grabbing his bags they raced hurried toward its trunk and huddled under the largest branches. With his sudden soberness the man looked at her, in rags and wet from the rain and in a half drunk and half child like minds stated, “You are beautiful. What is a lady like you doing out here on the street?”
He was unprepared for her reply, “I am anything but a lady.”
As the rain lessened but continued, they remained under the large tree as he confessed the squandering of his fortune on wine, women and song with friends that were only friends of his fortune and not friends to his financial dis-favor. She confessed that the only place she had to go was into the street and wait for a man to offer her a place for the night for a price. From there he learned that her mother had died, her father remarried, then he died and her step mother married a man with more than an eye for his wifes step daughter and lest she say anything, threatened her and threw her into the street. And like him she was far away from a land she knew, but unlike him there was no option to return to a home.
So as the sun began to set, she rose and returned to the street and suggested that unless he wanted to join her for in his own version of exchanging abuse for money, then he might sit on the ground as near to the inn door as he might be allowed and if he appeared to have some bodily injury, perhaps this somewhat accurate reflection of his sad state would find favor and small sums from passersby.
While sitting there in the moonlight he collects enough favor from passersby to purchase a small bottle of relief and with the numbing warmth it brought him in the cool night his mind began to wander to thoughts of his mother and the young woman who loved him and all of the things that he kept for himself and to wonder if they still loved him. When after another hour, his new friend returned he offered her his bottle, to which she used a bit to wash her mouth and after spitting it on the ground took a deep drink so as to join him in a state of numbing warmth. Returning to the tree she shared with him bread from her evenings wages and as they broke it together they communed together with a complete and honest confession of the entirety of their lives until with the rising moon came the falling of their eyes.
And in the morning, he returned to his place on the street, appearing crippled on the ground steps from the door of the inn where the young boy would from time to time come to look at him and bring him a cup of water. And she would, with white lips, a pale face and a sigh, walk a little way down the street and with the rising moon, meet him under the tree where they would share some bread, some meat and a bit of numbing warmth that cause her to ask him the honest question and for him to give the honest answer. The question asked was, “Why don’t you go home.”
The answer was his final confession, the confession of a broken heart. “The last thing my father said to me after he told me he knew why the woman who loved me left me, was that I was breaking my mothers heart, but if and only if I was through with whatever life I was going to chose to live and through breaking my mother’s heart, then and only then, should I return home.”
“Are you through?” she asked. He was. And he was through thinking anything his father had said was not right, and that anything in life could be better than what he had with a father who loved him and understood his pursuit of his worst inclinations, and a mother that did not understand those inclinations but still loved him and never wanted anything but the best for him.
“Then go home?” she stated. He agreed. But he hesitated and stated that he could not leave without her. In this moment of truth, he could not leave behind one that showed him kindness at his worst. He insisted and recalled that his father had friends who lived in places on the journey home and if they knew this was the person who returned him to his fathers house, they would care for her as if she were their own. And so with the setting sun, they agreed it was settled and that they would set off in the morning. As the moon rose, peace came to him and he slept without the numbing warmth he had grown accustomed to require. But his peace came to an end with a piercing scream heard down the street followed by a thump on the ground, then footsteps and then more footsteps and then his own.
“Who is she?” some asked. Their questions were answered by others that circled around her. Some with pity and some with contempt. He pushed through them and seeing her white face and pale lips, placed his hand under her to pull her to him. He felt the warmth of her head against his chest. But that warmth flowed in a crimson river from a wound near her temple. She was still breathing, or so he thought as he put his ear to her breath.
“I want you to go home.” That was her last breath to him as she lay in the street. The man who threw her there was led away. The stone that struck her head was taken with him. A priest appeared and pointed toward the church. That night she laid in his arms in the doorway of the church. With sunrise the innkeeper's son appeared with two shovels. A priest appeared and pointed to a plot in the graveyard next to the church. They dug. The priest prayed. She was laid to rest. The boy left with the shovels and returned with a jug of water.
Gathering what remained of his possessions the man placed one foot in front of the other and even as the moon rose he continued to walk the road asking himself how and what those at the end of his journey thought of him. The answer came to him in a dream where he recalled her questions of how he could walk away from a family that loved him, yet he could not leave someone like her in the street. And he recalled that she had answered her own question. For whatever reason, some people live life as if love was planted, grew and is always present. But with other people the love was planted it is present but they are in a winter of cold and darkness. Then one day something enters their life and they feel the warmth of light and the love begins to grow. He was that light and warmth to the love in her and the love in her was warmth and light to him.
Of all the love the man received including that from a broken hearted mother who wept for him as she prayed for him, the most perfect love planted in him, was the love of a father, who loved him with a love that let him go with a blessing, a warning, and his own broken heart asking for his return, solely with the condition that he would return to mend rather than again tear his mother’s broken heart.
As his journey ended, the son saw his father and the father saw his son and both knew that despite the distance and time, love is stronger.