Miracle of a kiss

My life with Anna started with a kiss. I was only twenty plus and she was sixteen. We were hiding from her parents and were then an "unofficial" couple on under-the-radar dates. The kiss, my first and most uneventful one, was at a secluded power station near her Clementi flat.  Trying to act cool, our lips met and we lingered for a stretch.

Curiously, the earth did not stand still. Neither did the stars spin out of their orbits. The only thing I remembered about the experience was my stupid comment to her after the kiss, "nothing special what."

My Anna never quite forgive me for that out-of-place remark. Now let's move on to another kiss from a different couple. While my first kiss with Anna was bland, this second kiss was intimately charming and passionate.  This kiss came from a couple named Winston and Debbie. A brief background is in order here.

This couple are in their 40s and they have been married for 16 years. We have been friends for more than 20 years. But under the surface, all is not calm - and for the 16 years they have been together, calm was a luxury this couple hardly savored.  You see beloved, Debbie has lupus and it is essentially a self-destructive condition. This disease is an autoimmune disease whereby the body attacks itself.

So, over the many years, Debbie suffered many physiological ailments; with the recent attacks more serious and insidious than the earlier ones.  But this is one tough cookie to crack and lupus has indeed met it's match. Although Debbie was physically ravaged by one wave of affliction after another, going through numerous hip replacements, a battery of painful chemotherapy, and having to endure leukemia and uncontrollable fits, her hope was still very much alive and vibrant.  Alas, although the strength of her spirit was herculean in many ways, her body was emaciated beyond  recognition. Skeletal-looking, extremely frail and coughing incessantly, even at times requiring external help to breathe, Debbie recently nearly gave in to the disease. But she fought hard to cling on to the straw-like entrails of life and won the battle just marginally.

Currently she hovers precariously between life and death, living out every day with the courage and gratitude that would put many ordinarily healthy adults to light embarrassment. Ok, enough of the background. Now comes the part about the kiss.  You'd recall my first kiss was unremarkable. But when I saw Winston planted a soft peck on Debbie's forehead the other day, I stood in quiet admiration of the infectious passion that was demonstrated that day.

It was a kiss like no other. While it was then not possible to kiss her mouth as her mouth was covered in full with ulcerated wounds, Winston's delicate and simple kiss that ordinary day was an selfless act of extraordinary devotion.  The immediate impression I got after his kiss was that Winston's love for Debbie was resiliently genuine and, everything he does for her, even that simplest of peck, was a clear tribute to his battle-scarred, timeless love for his beloved wife.  This instinctual observation and comparison then spurred me to ask this question: what love is it that is so transforming, so selfless and so transcendent? Can it be emulated?

This brings me to what the experts have to say about love.  Basically they have two approaches to love or why we fall in love. The first one has to do with our brain chemistry. One famous author wrote, "romantic love is woven firmly into the fabric of the human brain".  This is another way of saying that our capacity to love is in our genes - some have it more and love more; some have it less and love less.

 The second approach is the environment, or a matter of cultural construct. We are a byproduct of our environment and we are able to love deeply and loyally because we are culturally conditioned to so by watching others do likewise, in particular, our parents.  For those who fail in their most elemental relationships like marriage, the cause, in this second school of thought, is due to how these people were treated when they were young. They may have been abused, deprived or abandoned by their loved ones. And this is inimical to their own development and capacity to love others.

Whilst both approaches are valid to some extent, and true as far as social experiment goes, they still leave some questions unanswered and they are a tad too simple to provide a personally fulfilling explanation to the larger-than-life mystery of love and the intoxicating  emotions that come with falling in love.

Take the first approach, the brain chemistry, for example. The experts argue that love is just like our basic drive for food. Food consumption is just as important to our long term survival as a human species as love is as a prelude to reproduction. Imagine having lots of food but there is no one to share it with.  Evolution is not going to place it's bet on a loner to propagate the human race. So, without sexual reproduction, which dictates that we should go forth and multiply and populate the earth (very much a biblical command as it is an evolutionary injunction), our race would go off "quietly into the night", that is, extinction!

So, this is where our brains come in. Evolution has "craftily" conditioned our brains, through aeons of trials and errors, to pursue sexual reproduction with the opposite sex. Corny catchphrases like "love at first sight" or "lust at first sight" are merely chemical signals sent by our brain to propel us into action; actions characterized by flirting, pursuing and ultimately, proposing (with the aim of making babies).

It is said that a brain in love is a brain on fire. This is true from a neurobiological perspective. Innumerable chemical juices are fired in our brain when we are in love that very much control and consume our thoughts and actions.  For the meticulously-minded, some of these "attraction-juices" that conspires to cause us to copulate are dopamine, norepinephrine and testosterone.    The implication here is that little is left to the overriding aspect of human free will. When we are in love, our free will gets "unconsciously hijacked" by the paroxysm of these brain juices to achieve only one evolutionary defined goal: sex.  That is why a person is often too emotionally exuberant, too single-mindedly daring, and too irrationally incomprehensible for his or her good.

So for a brain scientist, a subject in love, is one who is marinated deep in the thick, gooey "goodness" of the cerebral gravy, and he or she is generally out-of-control and very much "puppet-stringed" by the chemical mayhem that is in the brain rather than by the dictate of individual, subjective choices (or free will).  You can see how this purely biological interpretation of the origin of falling in love can be so unromantic and counterintuitive.

Anyone, who has ever fallen in love, will rail at the mere suggestion that we are standing robots at the beck and call of the "throbbing noodles inside our skull".  Deep inside, we know that love is so much more than the materialistic and reductionistic explanation offered by brain scientists. This may sound too idealistic or romantic but, at this moment (subject to more convincing proof), I'd rather subscribe to a larger-than-science explanation of why we fall in love.

 Then, comes the second approach, the part about how environment plays a crucial role in our ability and capacity to love. This theory, like the first one, is also true to a certain extent. I mean who can deny that a bad childhood can adversely affect one's adulthood. That is why the truism rings loud that "the child is the father of the man".  Our past can haunt us as much as our future can motivate us. In fact, behavioral experts are able to single out three "Big-fellows"of personality disorder that "suck" big time at falling in love or sustaining a relationship. The three famed notoriety are: borderline personality disorder, narcissistic individuals, and, for the most obviously clear reason, psychopaths.

If you trace their background, all the way to their childhood and adolescent years, you will notice an underlining commonality: for most, these were the dark ages where their childhood were marred by abuse, parental divorces, school taunting, and the likes.

Take an extreme example for size, that is, the egregious hypocrisy of Josef Fritzl. On August 24, 1984, he imprisoned his daughter down in the cellar for 24 long years. He then raped her repeatedly after she reached 11 years old. She borne him seven children and one of them died.

During the 24 years, Josef and his wife appeared on Austrian television to appeal to the public to find their "missing" daughter. It was a horrible lie that deceived many. Out of the six surviving children, three of them suffered from serious psychological disturbance. You can say that there is no greater monster in this world than the one whom you trust will protect you. Their daughter was rescued from basement hell after 24 years of unspeakable emotional and physical abuse.

She is currently undergoing intense therapy. So it is tempting at this stage to take the broad-brush approach and sweep all those victims of bad childhood under the balmy rug of "borderline personality disorder" or worse, "sociopath" and "psychopath". And further condemn them as outright failure in the gambit called love. But it is all that simple? Can a bad childhood lead to deformed personality unable to feel, empathize or love? Aren't there cases that slipped through this stigmatic category? Aren't there inspiringly success stories of couples who beat all odds of their checkered past and thrive in all their relationships?

Well, of course there are. And because science is never an exact science, it's conclusions are often not exacting also.  Take for example, children who are interned into horrific camps during the Japanese war in 1941. These children had their childhood stolen from them and were made to witness the worst of what depraved humanity were capable of, and yet, most of them, after being released from the clutches of their evil slave-masters, were able to return to normalcy; setting up families of their own, thriving in their own sphere of life, and growing to a ripe old age with their loved ones.

Largely, they have undergone accelerated maturity and therefore were able to appreciate life more than others. The positive reports about them are that they are generally cheerful people, enjoying the triviality of life that most of us take for granted, and able to see the best even in the worst of circumstances.  Another touching example is the story of three local girls. They aged between 11 and 14. The headlines about their story cries out for attention; it reads, "S'pore mum tries to kill three filial daughters".

On Dec 27 last year, their mum, a divorcee, planned to kill her three daughters and herself in a suicide bid because she was in deep financial crisis. Thankfully, the eldest managed to escape and seek help. The three young girls are currently staying with their grandmother, whilst their mother, who has been working in a nightclub since 15, is homeless.  One can only imagine the daily trauma that these girls go through without the expected maternal care and attention. And one's fingers would be crossed on the future behavior of these neglected girls.

Based on the second approach to love, these girls should, on all counts, suffer from some form of empathy-malfunction, finding it hard to give and receive love, constantly suspicious of the intentions of others, and nursing a secret grudge against their mother.  But, you can uncross those stubbly fingers at least for now, because it is reported that they secretly gave all their savings and ang pow money to help their mother, and they did it behind their grandmother's back. Their mother was so touched that she said, "I regret what I had done. I have decided to start afresh and will not give up on life as I have three caring daughters."

To add to the poignancy of the moment was the report that wrote, "The daughters said they missed their mother but would not cry in front of her as they did not want her to worry about them." Her second daughter then shared with the reporter this heartfelt sentiment, "I have no more money to help my mother but I will start saving again."

Beloved, i think we should not write off any extraordinary act of passion/love that defies standard, cookie -cutter, one-size-fits-all explanation or category proposed by the above two approaches. Whether it is an exception to the rule or otherwise, our human capacity to love and to stay in love for wealth or for woe, for good or bad times, cannot be pinned down to some inherited genetic make-up or environmental factors/family upbringing.  The nature and nurture or nature via nurture debate will go on for the longest time whether or not there is any definite conclusion on either side. In any event, the origin and causes of human love is too sophisticated an emergent concept to be narrowed into any particular disciplinary field.

I mean, who is to say that I am motivated to love you, provide for you, and protect you because my brain is currently awashed with dopamine, oxytocin and vasopressin (the latter two promote attachment and fidelity in relationship). Maybe it's a case of reverse causation whereby my brain secretes these brain juices in response to my personal election to love another. It is therefore the "I" that chooses to devote my time and effort to another in the name of love which acts as a trigger point for the release of a chemical chain-reaction in my brain.

The chicken-and-egg question here is, for me, clear enough. It's the me-chicken that came first before the brain-juices egg. So, falling in love and staying in love is a continuous and consistent act of making the right choice to commit, to devote and to remain loyal. It's a question of personal responsibility that no amount of brain juices or environmental pressures can forfeit, erode or dictate.

Under distressing circumstances, the three daughters in our above example could have turned out wrong and rebellious. But they responded to the dire situation admirably and became a shining example of selfless giving and unquestioned devotion. How about Winston and Debbie?  Well, now I understand why Winston's soft peck on Debbie's forehead is so special. It is said that "love grows every time it is expressed".

For this couple, it is on a daily basis that they express their love.  Everything they do together is a result of this intimate and personal commitment to love each other unconditionally and faithfully.

So their love cannot help  but grow and grow until every mundane act they do for each other becomes an outward testament of their unwavering passion within.  As their love grows, their world also grows in scope and depth. They come to mature in their outlook of life. They come to understand that life is not a bed of roses and bad things can happen as often as good things. However, they don't back away from the curve balls that life throws at them. Instead of denying them or running away, they face their trial with hope and confidence, and more importantly, they face it together.

As a couple, they are a force of nature to be reckoned with. Come what may, they are able to meet their trials by drawing strength from all the little victories they have won along the way because the intensity of their love rose above their petty circumstances. Together, ordinary people like them create extraordinary lives.  It is said that "love creates miracles". And in their case, it is the same miracle that is released in a kiss.

(Dear all, Debbie passed away last july and I dedicate the above letter and the following consolation note to her and Winston:-

"Winston, mourn away bro, mourn away. Indeed you have fought the good fight...all the 16 unforgettable years!  So, mourn away bro - b'cos Deb, as a friend, a wife, a soulmate, and her cheerful, encouraging, and "nurses-scolding" days, can never be forgotten.

So mourn away bro, mourn away...I am not shy to admit that I cried like a baby while I penned these words; not b'cos Deb has gone to a better place (I rejoice deeply for that).

But, b'cos I am envious of Deb and you, and the fabulous 16 years you inseparable "love birds" have so courageously lived. Your love is exceptional b'cos Deb is an exceptional person. She may not have  always tasted good health in her lifetime but, without any doubt, she has tasted real love that on any given day would put all of us collectively to shame.

So, mourn away bro, mourn away, for your lover has gone and, as faithful as Deb is, she is cheerfully waiting for you on the other side (keeping angels on their toes).

Bro, if there is anyone who has come closest to teach me that there is a personal God, it is the never-say-die love that you and Deb shared. Indeed this morning's victory is not the disease that had ravaged her body, it's the 16 wonderful years of celebration of your undying love for each other.

 So mourn away bro, mourn away... finish this race that has been set for you.

Live your life with this resilient hope that you once shared an exceptional love with an exceptional person in a meaningful span of an exceptional marriage.

So mourn away bro mourn away and rejoice for now you can spend every new dawn with your everlasting love in your heart, where nothing bad can ever happen, and you can always draw strength to meet every storm that comes your way with that cheerful, encouraging and "nurses-scolding" attitude and declare to the storm, "I had been there with the love of my life and had emerged even stronger!"

Amen...