What Love Can Do

"Love requires time, effort and sacrifice to someone who deserves it all." my mom once reminded me about this one

"...and if you're not willing to do these things?" out of the blue I asked

"Then, it must have been not love at all"

and I was left speechless.

My mom and I used to talk about her love story with Dad. I was just always there to listen but this time, it becomes different. I had plenty of questions which I knew my mom would be the best person to ask with.

I asked her why she couldn't leave my father, when she has plenty of reasons to do so. My father, is a well-known alcoholic in our place. I can still remember the nights when my mother fetch him up from the location where he and his friends are having their own idea of happiness. An image of my mother almost dragging my father just to go back to our house is still fresh on my mind— and this scenario happens almost every night. Just by that, it could be a reason for a wife to give up on his husband who seems not to care at all, even when he's being scolded in public for his drunkenness. My mom could have had her reasons to settle for a separation with Dad, but how come she can't make it?

I once asked her about that and she would always answer with this,

"If we will separate, the burden you'll take will become twice the heartache of us being separated. Would you want to experience having a broken family?"

Though this is somehow true but that just doesn't stop there. I know there's a greater reason why she cannot do that. I know, I can tell— it's love that keeps hindering her from breaking up with Dad.

I would recall how she immediately make a soup for him even after she would almost lost her voice, shouting and scolding at my dad— who can remember nothing except for the label of the alcohol he drank. I can still remember how she prepares his clothes and change it for him. I can still remember how she goes out of our house just to look for him, when he's not still inside and it's past the hour of eight. I can still remember how she sacrifices her sleep just to wait for my Dad to go home whenever he is out on a trip, because she doesn't want anyone to bother her when she has fallen asleep already, it's because she doesn't want her insomnia to attack. I can still remember how she'd care too much, even after a huge fight. I know, it's my mother's love for my father that keeps pushing her to do these things. It's love that teaches her to stay, even if my father could be the hardest person to be with. Love is the reason why she didn't choose to leave him and now we're still complete.