We don’t talk much about love anymore. It is relegated to the sideline because there are more important things to pursue, like a good career, a good promotion, a good house, a good life.
But what’s ever good without love? What is a good house without love? What is a good life without love?
For this, my heart is deeply touched by the story of a couple featured in the papers today. Yes, it is about love, about the ceaseless joy of loving at all costs.
On 14 Feb this year, Mr N. Arumugam gave a big hug to his wife, Mrs Saras Adiya. They will be celebrating their 40th anniversary next month. They have two grown up children.
They say the best gift on Valentine’s day beyond the worldly glitters is to give your life to the one you love. And Arumugam gave just that, he gave his kidney to Saras.
Journalist P. Bala reports the story and wrote: “His hug for her was filled with deep emotion and a lot of relief as the 66-year-old had feared he would lose his wife last year because she was seriously ill.”
Saras discovered that she had polycystic kidney disease in 2013. It was an inherited disorder “where cysts develop in the kidneys, causing them to enlarge and lose function over time.”
She was asked to go for kidney dialysis but she was not in favour of it. However, her condition worsened and doctors told her that she needed an immediate kidney transplant. The catch is to find a matching donor.
This is where her husband steps in.
Their daughter, 39, said this: “Dad has too much love for mother, but he is someone who doesn’t express his love openly. But on hearing this news, he wanted to save her at all costs and was the first in the family to volunteer and offer his kidney.”
From there, Arumugam went through numerous tests to assess “if his kidney was suitable for donation.”
Saras recalled: “I was rather calm about the whole situation and went about life normally. It was tense period for my husband as he had to manage his business and go for the medical tests. Despite the fear of losing me, my family members were positive.”
At that time, Arumugam ran a modest flower shop near their HDB flat in Yishun for over 30 years.
After six months of testing, Arumugam was given the go-ahead and he was so relieved. The operation was a success and Saras was overjoyed to have a “second chance at life”.
Lesson? Three, and it is about love from Arumugam’s own words and experiences.
1) “At the back of my mind, I was worried whether my kidney would be a match. But I was never going to give up despite all the medical tests I had to take. When the initial tests showed at least 60 per cent match, there was a glimmer of hope. The rest was in God’s hands.”
I recall a time when I was filing divorce papers for a wife who had to go for a liver transplant in China.
What tipped the scale for her was when her young husband told her these words: “Don’t expect me to be burdened by you for the rest of your life.”
At that time, she told me with tears in her eyes that she knew the marriage was over.
However, for Arumugam, he was eager to be a match for Saras. He held on to whatever hope he had and that embrace on Valentine’s day attested to his undying devotion to her.
Looking at a man who “doesn’t express his love openly” for his wife, Arumugam has showed me that love is not prone to boast openly. It is a silent doer and its faithfulness leaves an unbroken trail of quiet marital assurances over the decades.
And that is how matches in heaven are made, not in a big splash of affection once in a while, but it is in the daily, unseen devotion that adds up through the years.
Here comes Arumugam’s second advice.
2) “Married life is not just about sacrifices. It is about giving in to each other to make it work. There is no room for egos and, along with patience, one must develop the resilience and fighting spirit to see through challenges together.”
That’s faithfulness in action, from personal experience.
I feel that the greatest validation of a marriage is the consistent fight to make it work.
And in our time, under the hypnotic sway of the materialist creed, we tend to consumerise (or commoditise) marriage into a romance package of personal experiences. And when the romance is gone, or the feeling of it is lost, there goes our commitment to stay on. We thus start looking for the next novel companion that comes along.
I always believe that one is never ready for marriage if he or she is not ready to explore and develop the depth of a relationship. And this calls for personal unravelling and sacrifices to slay our ego when it rears its ugly head.
At the marital surface, during the honeymoon period, everything may seem swell. But over the years, what ultimately matters is - as in the words of Arumugam - “along with patience,” to “develop the resilience and fighting spirit to see through challenges together”.
That is what I call exploring/developing the depth of a relationship, and it is a development that takes a lifetime. For it is always the entrenched roots that can weather the storms of life when they come, and never the shallow ones.
And finally, comes the unsurpassed joy...
3) Arumugam is back to his flower business now. His wife is recovering and “he believes there is no greater joy than being able to provide for the love of his life.”
I started this post by saying that love has been sidelined in our materialist pursuit. And with that, all relationships are at risk of becoming transactional (to satisfy one’s ego), instead of being transforming (to deny one’s ego).
And that is also why the deep joy of a relationship has mutated into transient pleasures from one physical sensation to another. In other words, love (when perverted by the materialist creed) is nothing more than one’s lust for more of the tangible and short term.
That is why he proclaimed “there is no greater joy than being able to provide for the love of his life”.
And what is most empowering in that experience are the words “no greater joy” and “the love of his life.”
Because when you pursue the love of your life even after marriage, and especially after marriage, in a lifetime journey of developing the depths of this most intimate relationship, you will experience unsurpassed joy not only in the faithfulness of the little things, but in the overcoming of great trials together. Amen. Cheerz.
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