Love Is A Factory Setting

Do We Learn to Love or Do We Unlearn Love?

I was at a friend’s house on Friday night. The plan was to play a board game, but we never got around to it. Instead, our host cooked while we chatted. His adorable, very young son, chattered in the pre-verbal cuteness that babies do and pounded the table for food.

Rest in Peace, SK.

During the course of our conversation, one of us mentioned that a friend of his had died suddenly. As we talked more, I realized that the deceased was an old friend of mine. Someone I had been close with for years before our friendship had fallen off for various reasons. I had seen her recently, and in a short conversation I felt the hope that maybe, just maybe, our friendship could resume. That hope died upon hearing the news.

Feelings overwhelmed me, and I sat with my hand over my face. I closed my eyes. Rushes of shock, sadness, and some emotions that I don’t have names for surged through me.

My friends stayed quiet. Three dudes in a room, one is freaking out, what could they do? I felt a little tapping on my leg and looked down. Marlowe, the little guy, under a year old, gazed up at me. He’s not old enough to talk or walk. He navigated to me by holding onto things. He surfed his way across the space between us to check in on me. It was clear that he cared.

His father is a gentle, loving man. But I can’t believe that Marlowe was taught to share a concern for a relative stranger who is overwhelmed by grief. That holy little soul was operating on pure intuition. His heart was wide open, and mine opened too. I patted his head. He stayed with me for a while.

When I walk the New York Streets, I often pass people in distress. They lie on the sidewalk, they shout at phantoms on the subway platforms. I know there’s nothing I can do for them. I know that some of them could hurt me. I also know they all need help, love, and kindness just like we all do. Did I unlearn how to love so that I could get to work, survive, be a New Yorker, an American, a man?

I’m a parent. I know that children aren’t always driven by compassion. They can also be self-centered. And I know that, for me, part of growing up was learning that there are other people in the world. It almost feels as though, maybe, I was born a loving creature, I became a self-centered one, and now I’m on a lifelong quest to learn to love again. To make a return.

This isn’t a clear essay, I know. It’s been a tough week. But I wanted to share with you that in a moment of despair, a tiny human reached out and comforted me. Even amid the shock of pain, love can surprise.

May we all find the love that comes naturally this week. May we unlearn the unlearning and surprise those around us with our compassion.

Sending you love,

I am,

Sean Sakamoto