One of the most influential quotes of 2016 was Hamilton’s Lin Manuel Miranda’s acceptance speech at the 2016 Tony Awards in which he most emotionally said, “Love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside.” Throughout the year, after he gave the legendary speech in June, I not only memorized it, but listened to him say those words over and over again. Letting them resonate, thinking of their importance. I spent a lot of my year looking for the significance of these words in the world. Our daily lives are tarnished by so much hate and negativity that we often forget to look for spots of love--the kind that cannot be killed or swept aside.
The best example of this quote in my life came on Christmas day, when a family member of mine was saying grace before dinner. It’s been a tradition in my family that my grandmother carefully selects a family member to speak in front of us all before dinner. And it’s become more than just a simple prayer before we eat. Instead, it’s been accompanied by all sorts of song and dance, props and accessories, and beautiful speeches. This particular year, my cousin was chosen to speak, and she touched on some rather sentimental and triggering memories surrounding the head of our family, my great grandfather who passed away when I was three. He was an important man, from what I hear, kind and reserved and sweet. In that moment I wished I had known him like the people sitting around me had.
I looked around the room as my cousin spoke with a shaky voice, and watched the members of my family around me collapse in sentimental tears. Sitting at the head of the table, toward the back of the room, I had no choice but to watch my family react with happy nostalgia and the emptiness that goes along with loss. There was something about the comfort of such a sad moment. The way my grandmother collapsed sideways into my aunt, who held her with both arms. Her tears running into my grandmother’s hair. She was wearing her red apron. My great uncle grabbed the hand of my great aunt, immediately, as if to tell her he was there. Everyone turned to one another, held one another, gravitated toward the comfort of knowing someone was there. It was incredible to watch. In that moment, as I sat watching one of the most touching and beautiful moments of my year, something came back into my head, “love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside.” That alone brought tears to my eyes.
That moment was important to me. It showed me something really valuable about the world that we live in. It showed me that love is in fact, everywhere. It is around your christmas dinner table in ways unimaginable to your mind, cluttered with fear and stress. Maybe it is not easy to see as you dodge people on the crowded sidewalks when it is 11 degrees and you’ve spilled hot coffee everywhere, late to work again. Maybe it is not easy to see when you are tired or not feeling your best, or when you are lost. But when you take a moment so simple and precious, and look at it in its beautiful naked face- you will see that love is actually everywhere. It’s inside all of us, deep down, somewhere. Your co-workers, family members, children, fellow students, strangers, and acquaintances. Love is there, in the most simple ways, and there is no better way to describe the confusing little word.
As we went to go fill our plates with dinner, I continued to think of the speech my cousin had given, and my grandmother continued to cry. She is the head of our family, and my great grandfather would be so proud. I’m not sure if the rest of my family saw what I saw in that moment on Christmas day. It is hard sometimes to see things that you are not looking for. I’d assume that’s a good way to look at the world looming in front of all of us in 2017. With an eye that seeks to notice the love all around the spaces that we’ve named so mundane and regular and tiresome. That “Love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside.” From anything in your life. From anywhere in your life. Not work or school or Starbucks. Not the dinner table. Not now and not ever.
