My love for the child asleep in the crib, the child's need for me, for my vigilance, had made my life valuable in a way that even the most abundantly offered love, my parents', my brother's, even Tom's, had failed to do. Love was required of me now--to be given, not merely to be sought and returned.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the profound value of love that is selflessly given, particularly in the context of caring for a child.
Alice McDermott reflects on the transformative nature of love, particularly the unconditional love a parent feels for their child. This love demands vigilance and commitment, marking a significant shift from the love received from family and friends into a more responsibility-driven, nurturing form of love that imparts a deep sense of purpose and value to one's life.
In practice
In a speech about parenting, one might use this quote to illustrate the depth of love that comes with child-rearing.
We turned onto the last landing. Going out with this guy, I thought, would involve a lot of silly laughter, some wit--the buzz of his whispered wisecracks in my ear. But there would be as well his willingness to reveal, or more his inability to conceal, that he had been silently rehearsing my name as he climbed the stairs behind me. There would be his willingness to bestow upon me the power to reassure him. He would trust me with his happiness.
The lesson, I suppose, is that none of us have much control over how we will be remembered. Every life is an amalgam, and it is impossible to know what moments, what foibles, what charms will come to define us once we're gone. All we can do is live our lives fully, be authentically ourselves and trust that the right things about us, the best and most fitting things, will echo in the memories of us that endure.
Publishing a short story can sometimes feel like shouting into the dark... your words come out, and then nothing... but I don't think that's why I tend to write novels rather than stories.
I know a man who, when he saw a woman of striking beauty, praised the Creator for her. The sight of her lit within him the love of God.
LADY BRACKNELL Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, but he looks everything. What more can one desire?
This time is difficult. Wait for me. We will live it out vividly. Give me your small hand: we will rise and suffer, we will feel, we will rejoice. We are once more the pair who lived in bristling places, in harsh nests in the rock. This time is difficult. Wait for me with a basket, with a shovel, with your shoes and your clothes. Now we need each other, not only for the carnations' sake, not only to look for honey — we need our hands to wash with, to make fire.
She let herself love me for three minutes. Can three minutes last forever? I ask myself, but already know the answer. Probably not, I reply. But maybe they last long enough.
Compassion is an action word with no boundaries.
If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.
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