What is Love? you ask. Hmm! Not sure about that. I had been in Swan Hill visiting my mother. It was Easter Sunday; we went to church with Mum. After church, Ock, Mums cousin wandered over. A tall man, dressed in an old suit, the tie an ornament on his shirt. Softly spoken, his eyes clear, focused. A farmer, who had purchased my grandfather’s farm next door to his father’s, now his farm in the Mallee, 25 kilometers west of Swan Hill.
After a brief exchange, a greeting, then the question. “Do you want to go for a fly today? I’m heading up the Murray River to Robinvale. I want to see how many people are camped along the river” he said. “Yes, I will be in that” was my quick response. “Then meet me at the hanger at 1.00pm. I’ll have to drop into the farm for some avgas on our way north.” I looked around. Mum was busy talking, so Joan and I wandered over to our car, Mum electing to walk home.
The day cloudless, a light breeze from the north. We rolled the front hanger doors back: man- handled the Cessna 172 out of its hanger at the Swan Hill aerodrome. Climbing into the plane, I fastened my seat belt as Ock cranked the engine. It fired, we taxied out to the grass runway, Ock working the controls, turned on the radio, instruction given, a flight plan sent over the radio as he headed out to pause on the grass runway ready for takeoff. A final check of the flaps and rudder control, a quick look around, then the throttle pushed forward, the engine roars and the plane gathered speed as it raced across the grass to become airborne.
As the ground disappears from beneath the plane, the engine throttled back, the noise softens as Ock talks into the radio. There is that sense of total freedom. I look over to Ock, in a world of his own, riding turbulent air, as we turn north, the river coming into sight. Below, the world grows smaller as we ride on a shifting, bucking cushion of air. Ock, in his 80’s, moves with the aircraft. They are one, in harmony. A love affair between man and machine. Each totally dependent on the other. Sadly, Och passed away a little over 12 months ago. He handed in his pilot’s license two years earlier, aged 93.
Late last year, I visited Ock’s wife in an aged care home in Swan Hill. I sat as we wandered down memory lane. A mother to four children, nurse, farmer’s wife, and neighbour to a diminishing community of farmers living on the farm. Then a pause. Margaret looked up, a smile on her face, her eyes glowing. “You know,” she said, “a couple of days before Ock passed, he came into the family room from his shed. I looked up at the clock. “You ready for a cup of tea?” I asked. He came over, paused, and said “I love you.” Her face lit up. She sat still in her chair. Then, perhaps a moment of embarrassment, as she turned to look out her window: red flowers moving gently to the rhythm of a light breeze in the garden. There was a long pause, reliving that moment. Then she turned to me, “That was a very special moment for me” she said. “Ock had been out in his shed making a tow ball to attach a small shopping trailer to my electric gofer. My mobile shopping trailer he called it. And two days later he was gone.”
So, what is love you ask? A simple word, easy to spell, but not so easy to put into words, to understand. But then, when we are loved by another, something happens. We know. We recognize that moment. Perhaps it’s in the eyes, a smile, the nod of the head, for the memory lingers. Love is so much more than just a word. It is a human expression, intimate, a place beyond words: It sits in the human soul.
As a small boy of 10, Mum came to me and said “I am taking you to Auntie Gert for a short holiday.” I was surprised. “What for?” I asked. There was no response. Mum gave me a small case. “You’ll find your school clothes in the case. Aunty Gert will take you to school.” Mum was quiet as she drove me to Auntie Gerts opposite the Swan Hill High School. A few days later, Dad came and collected me after school. It was much later Mum told me my favourite Aunty Jess, had died.
Many years later, I asked Mum, “What happened to Aunty Jess?” There was a long pause. Mum was in her 90’s. Old age had caught up, but her mind sharp. We sat, and she told the tragic story of my favourite aunt. How, on the day of Auntie Jess’s funeral, her father was distraught. Mum said, “He was a broken man. Then, in walked his old war mate, Billy Woods. They had served together on a machine gun in France. My grandfather, badly wounded, was repatriated to England, to be nursed back to health. He returned to Australia in late 1918. It was not until 1943 at an Anzac March in Melbourne when he was reunited with his mate. Billy Woods, a farmer over by Rainbow.
“When Billy Woods walked into the lounge room, Dad was a different man.” Mum said. “They sat, they talked, they drank tea together. Then, they walked to Dad’s car together. Mum said, “After the funeral, they returned to the house. Dad’s old mate stayed late into the night. Dad was able to hold himself together through the funeral service, and at the grave side.”
So, what is Love you ask? Perhaps, when life itself is just to exist in a dark place in a past, never spoken of. For their love for each other exists, not in words, in caring for each other. Perhaps, over a small fire: a shared cup of coffee: a crumpled cigarette, a word about a mate. To pause, to comfort a shell-shocked soldier, a wounded mate. Selfless acts for another. In his letter to the people at Corinth, (1 Corinthians 13) Paul with quill in hand, begins with these words, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have Love,” and the words flow like a stream rushing down a mountainside to burst out over dry parched land: life renewed, invigorated. Then, Paul draws together his final word on Love. “And now, Faith, Hope and Love abide. These three and the greatest of these is Love.” (1 Corinthians 13: verse 13) Paul is clear, Faith, and Hope, as important as they are, can never replace Love. But why?
We are born helpless and in the care of our mother. We grow to choose to be who we are, who we want to be. Love is part of that journey. Then, something happens. For some, it is a continuum of life, for others, a remarkable discovery. We are drawn into a faith community. Love begins to take on a deeper meaning. Daniel Niles in a hymn he wrote expressed this Love in these words “The great love of God is revealed in his son, who came to this earth to redeem everyone. That Love like a stream flowing clear to the sea, makes clean every heart that from sin would be free.” I have come to understand the words in this beautiful hymn to be summed up in one word, God’s Grace.
Paul said, “These three, and the greatest of these is Love.” To understand this, to embrace this is to accept God’s gift of love. This Love is not a simple word on a piece of paper. This love is found in the death of one called Jesus on a cross. It was no simple act. It was an act of love for us, God’s people. We call it grace. It is God’s gift to each of us: unexpected, undeserved, and unconditional. What is Love you ask? It is a journey on a road much travelled. It lives in us and is shared with those we meet on the way.
Ken