The Greatest Love of All

Bill Maher recently had a bit of a rant about narcissism and the dangers of self-love. One thing that stuck was his story about a five-year-old kid behind him kicking his seat during a cross-country flight and the parent explaining that “Logan is only exploring.”

“No,” Bill said, “Logan is being a dick, and if you’re not going to stuff him in the overhead luggage compartment, I will!”

After I stopped laughing, I realized that the concept of loving oneself has become, as is inevitable with mortals, somewhat warped with time.

The Greatest Love of All, when performed by George Benson in the 1970s, was sung gently and with compassion, as he entreats the listener to instill confidence and self-respect in our children.

The same song, performed by Whitney Houston in 1985, is a totally different animal. A fan of Benson’s version, I winced when the diva belted it out at full volume because Whitney was nothing if not a narcissist. She made everything into a “look at me” anthem when I believe this particular song was meant to encourage us to teach our kids not about self-love, but about selfless love.

Love in its mortal form is conditional. I love you because:

You love me.

You feed me.

You give me things.

You do things for me.

You ask nothing of me.

And if you stop, I won’t love you anymore.

Love in its purest form, the love that every child brings with him at birth, is the wellspring of kindness and generosity, of sincerity and compassion and respect for ourselves, for each other, and for the planet that sustains us.

There is nothing at all wrong with reminding that child of his divinity. There is, however, a grave injustice in cossetting that kid and letting him run riot. That’s doing him as much a disservice as it is annoying the heck out of the guy whose seat the kid is kicking. Darn this compostable container. It’s tricked us into teaching an entire generation that every one of them can have whatever they want whenever and wherever they want it because they are entitled. The era of instant gratification has made our children selfish, petulant, demanding, and incapable of fending for themselves in the real world.

On the flipside, however, because contrast is a universal law, there are millennials who band together for the greater good, who run bottle drives and raise funds for hurricane relief and apply themselves to their lessons so they can find the cure for cancer or champion clean energy. Those kids have got the message. They have healthy self-esteems and not only do they respect society, they want to improve it. Kudos to those kids, and to their parents for keeping them in tune with their inherent natures.

The song is true. If it gives a child the courage and confidence to make a positive difference in the world, then learning to love himself can be the greatest gift of all.

All My Children

Adults don’t count. Vampires are certainly excluded. Even the children in my stories must be considered characters rather than offspring, being born to the aforementioned fictitious adults. But I guess, in a funny way, every one I write is my child.

On second thought, maybe not. I did not birth Lucius or Julian or Black or Cassie or any of the other grown ups—mortal or otherwise—who populate my work. They came to me as individuals with stories to be told. I happen to be the scribe. The biographer. Some authors roll their eyes at others like me, who insist that their protagonists appear like ghosts, fully-formed and possessed of a unique personality, looking for a mouthpiece to speak for them. What, do those authors build their heroes from spare parts and assign traits from a personalities app?

Zzzzzzzz.

I have never constructed a character. Perhaps it’s a matter of deconstructing, of working backward from the final result to learn how he/she became who he/she was when I met him/her. Take Lucius, for example. When I met him, he was a battle-scarred warrior of legendary reputation. His “bad dude” potential was right up front and I know some folks who were either scared of him, disliked him, or both. Now, a dozen years and six volumes later, I understand how he became the scary bad hero of Treason. I’ve worked with him for long enough to have learned what makes him tick, and not because he’s confessed to any of it. I’ve learned about him through the eyes of those who knew him as a child, then as a boy, then as a young man. Did I invent those people, each with a story to complement his? I suppose, on some level, it’s possible.

But it’s much more fun to imagine that I simply make myself available and the voice finds me.

Kid Me Not

Do I regret not having children?

Nope.

Lately, however, I’ve discovered that other people’s children—namely newborns—possess a perilous charm all their own. Cuddling my  five-week-old great-niece caused a brief pang of something close to remorse that probably coincided with another ovum popping out of contention. Same thing with the downstairs neighbours’ newbie back in February; she was two weeks old and out like a light when I cradled her, and what a sweet warm weight she was, too.

She has since grown into a wriggler. I happened on her last week and was invited to get reacquainted while her mum and I chatted. She’s three months old and able to sit in the crook of my arm, but man, she was a pedaling fury the whole time. Still sweet and warm, but … back to Mum you go, kiddo!

Would I have been a good mother?

Dunno. I like to think so, but only an adult child can say whether their mother was a good one, and it’s a credit to mine that all five of her kids adore her. Since I have no children, adult or otherwise, I can’t answer that question.

Am I a good aunt?

I love my nieces and nephews, but that’s about it. I’m not a hands-on auntie, and in truth, I relate better to the next generation now that they’re having kids of their own.

I don’t relate well to children.

Which doesn’t explain why I write about them so much. one of my favourite characters is twelve years old—and a real handful, to boot. Her best friend is one of a litter, and they run riot across the pages of whatever Fixed Fire story is in progress. And more are coming, as heroes and heroines fall in love. It seems that a babe is always pending, so what gives?

The Kindest Thing

Mum and Ru 2005

During a creative exercise some years ago, I was asked: “What was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?”

Gee. Kind things are done for me all the time, even when I don’t see them. A few examples popped immediately to mind, but none of them were more than moments—strangers stopping to see if I was okay after I slipped on a frosty sidewalk; friends dropping a box of non-perishable foodstuffs on our doorstep when Ter and I were broke; coffees bought or hugs exchanged or smiles offered all counted if I simply wanted to answer the question, but I thought seriously about it because the kindest thing ever suggested selecting a single item from a half-century stuffed with possibilities.

I actually came up with one. The kindest thing anyone has ever done for me?

My mother wanted me.

She didn’t just want me; she contrived to get me, and once she had me, I lacked for nothing. I wasn’t spoiled with material things, but from my first breath I was loved. In a world where children are too often born by accident or nefarious design, my mother made her kids the center of her universe. I was luckier than my sibs—I came just after my older sister began kindergarten and my parents’ best friends welcomed a newbie to their family. Timing is everything, so I scored big.

Nelson Mandela said that you can tell a lot about a society by the way it treats its children. Even in the poorest conditions, children can be loved and taught to believe in themselves. Regrettably, this is not always the case. I see the evidence in my job and in the people around me; in the adult children of women who did the best they could, but perhaps lacked the focus my mother possessed. Raising children is so hard that I’m glad I don’t have any of my own, but if I had become a mother, I hope I’d have been as wonderful to my daughter as mine has been to me.

Happy Mother’s Day.

All You Need

Following “I Am” is “Happy”, a documentary about the science of happiness punctuated with stories of people following their bliss. Turns out that wealth and status account for a whole 10% of our happiness quota. 50% might be DNA-related, which leaves a full 40% of how to get happy up to the individual.

The most powerfully memorable scene in the film featured a comic addressing a junior high assembly. He asked for volunteers who’d been teased or bullied to come forward and tell the other kids how they felt to be on the receiving end. The braver kids actually stood up and shared; by the end of the session, everyone was in tears and the bullied kids were heroes. The voiceover stated that the best thing we can do is teach our children to love.

I thought, Kids are born loving. We have to stop teaching them not to love.

Because that’s what we do. Intentionally or not, love is taught out of our kids and replaced with judgment, jealousy, anger, and fear. It takes time, but eventually, love becomes a commodity or a condition rather than a freely given right of birth.

Ter related an experience she had at the grocery store on the weekend – she met a toddler in the produce department who was happily offering high-fives to everyone he saw. Most people ignored him. Ter didn’t. She leaned in, smiled at him, and gently smacked her palm to his. He loved it. They shared a moment, then went their separate ways.

At the checkout, she spied the little guy in the lineup two tills over. His dad was paying for the groceries and he was sitting in the cart, looking around. When he saw her at a distance, he broke into a grin and thrust his open hand high in salute. High five, lady! He remembered her. They had connected.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. I usually thumb my nose at it, but that was before I realized that the day is a celebration not only of lovers, but of love itself, in all its many forms. Love, love, love. It’s what we are, what connects us, what surpasses barriers of language and culture and social status. Children don’t care what you’re driving or how many vacation homes you own. They only know the person behind your eyes. Ter connected with the little guy at the grocery store. He won’t remember her in years to come, but he recognized her in that moment.

 

High five!

It's a Boy!!

 

 

I admit, I’m a Royalist, so I would be delighted about the newborn British prince anyway, but the added bonus to yesterday’s arrival of Will and Kate’s son is that it shoved all the bad news in the world aside for a while.

 

Isn’t it nice to hear something good on the news for a change? To have the anchors and reporters be smiling as they report it? There is already so much negativity in on the air: kill-or-be-killed cupcake wars, the Real Narcissistic Housewives of Whocares, scratching-and-clawing competitions to be the best of a bunch of losers, serial murderers outwitting the good guys – and that’s just prime time entertainment. I can’t speak about the news so much, not since The Newsroom has taught me how to watch the evening news. It’s the fall of the Roman Empire, man. Death, destruction, plague and flood and a host of other Biblical weather bombs … even the planet is trying to win ratings by outdoing itself in extremes.

 

Sure, the little prince is only one of three hundred thousand babies born on July 22, 2013. Every baby should be celebrated at birth. So many aren’t, and I feel for them because they get no press at all. There is so little happiness on the air these days. The networks rarely report random acts of kindness. I guess the focus groups indicate that they want to be paranoid and fearful about everything and everyone.

 

I don’t. I’m happy to hear about Kate’s little guy. I’m glad to know that one child in the world is loved by his parents, that he will have all that every child deserves (except the paparazzi hounding his every move, of course). I’m happy to watch people celebrating a royal birth rather than destroying a city over the loss of a sports trophy. Yes, there is tragedy and loss and illness and politics and all manner of reasons to slash your wrists if you let it get to you … I’m just saying that once in a while, some good news is welcome.

 

The Prince of Cambridge has a lot to live up to … but for now, he’s just a newborn babe who has managed to make the world (or most of it) pause to smile.

 

We now return you to our regularly scheduled chaos …