Love and Lear(n)?

Reminder of my big question: What are the boundaries between love and sacrifice? Or do they exist?

Sacrifice didn't seem to be a big part of King Lear. In fact, the exact opposite was true. When I first decided on this question I was considering the kind of love we think of when we think of our sigficant other, or our family, or our friends...In most cases this coincides/coexists with sacrifice...hence the term sacrificial love. I seem to have forgotten the other kinds of love.

In Lear, sacrificial love is hard to come by, if nonexistent. The closest examples I can think of are Cordilia: she gives up her position and standing with her father for the truth. Kent: his loyalty could be deemed a sacrifice. Mostly, the book consists of self love, the opposite of sacrificial love. Goneril and Reagan's selfish lies to their fathr and secret scheming...Edmund's betrayal....perhaps this is what makes it a tragedy.

What have I gathered from Lear? If love and sacrifice are the same thing, they can't exist without the other--the true love package includes sacrifice free of charge. Without either, the love is defunct.

El Primero...

"Te quiero mucho," she said to me softly, the words whispering off her tongue like silk through the breeze. She wrapped her thin arms around my waist and squeezed; the strength ebbing from her body belaying her small size.

The world stopped in that moment.

I forgot the filth surrounding me. Forgot the reeking, nauseating scent of broiled chicken and human waste. Forgot the small children with their oversized shoes, torn outfits, and runny, tired eyes. Forgot the miles upon miles of brown earth mountains, their heads and feet covered with the tin shanties of Pamplona Alta, Peru. They were painted with such cheerful pastel colors...it made me want to cry...

But in that moment, amidst suffering unspeakable, I caught a glimpse of what it truly takes to love--completely, utterly, and unconditionally.



It is not easy to completely define the boundaries of love and sacrifice or the line between them...in fact, I wonder if there are no boundaries and the line between them is non existent.

In Cold Mountain for example, Inman, in the name of love, sacrifices his safety, well-being, and and ultimately his life to desert the army and begin a seemingly endless journey home. There, on the slopes of Cold Mountain he reunites with Ada, the woman he loves, who has sacrificed not only the life she knew but also her old self to survive. Together, their empty souls find one another and create new life.

Sophacles also touches on this phenomenon in his historic play, Oedipus Rex. Oedipus himself, having discovered his sin, and out of love for his own children and the city he has sinned against, blinds himself in atonement. Thus, sacrifice is a physical example of the depth of love one person can have.

It seems strange that I had to travel all the way to Lima, Peru to understand a small part of what it means to sacrifice and to love. I wish I could describe to you what it was like to look into the faces of residents and see the sacrifice, pain, and suffering etched upon every crease and wrinkle. But when you looked into their eyes, the overwhelming love flowing from within not only verified the sacrifices they endured, but labeled them a necesity.