What’s this love-shove?I saw the saddest thing yesterday
Sheryl Crow on Larry King Live.
Sheryl Crow, 44 years old.
As Wikipedia describes her, 9-time Grammy winning American blues rock singer, guitarist, bassist and songwriter.
Of late, her newsworthiness has been for reasons other than her music. She was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in late February 2006. And in the same month, her much publicised 4-year romance with Lance Armstrong came to an end. Who would think they’d spilt. I mean, they were stuff that fairytales are made of, two brilliant haevenly bodies brought together by the gods and the world watched this celestial mating with envious sighs, the Mills&Boon climax on the Oprah Winfrey show.
For those of you who may not know, Lance Armstong is famous not just because he is champion racing cyclist, but also because he won the Tour de France a record 7 consecutive times from 1999 to 2005 - several years after being diagnosed and treated for testicular cancer that spread to his brain and lungs. His triumph over cancer was so amazing and empowering that he founded The Lance Armstrong Foundation to support cancer survivors and victims and the bright yellow Livestrong wristband became a world wide symbol of this.
So, you’d think, in spite of everything, Lance would rush to be by her side, right? As Larry King who asked the same question, put it to Sheryl, “just as a friend,…would have been a big help, having gone through his cancer was, worse than yours? He was going to die, right?”
Here’s Crow’s answer….
CROW: "You know, actually, interestingly enough, the person that was the most helpful -- helpful for me was Doug Ulman, who works for him…"
In other words....no.
It was one of the saddest things that I ever heard.
I know. I am judging somebody else’s private life. But isn’t there a little more to love? A little more beyond the first electric, breathless months, years – something that lasts and endures at least a few centimetres into the “thin”? If friends are for fair weather and foul, shouldn’t lovers be for at laest a bit of the storm?And I wondered….….what is this love-shove?
My parents were married for 47 years.
I don’t think my father could even remember their wedding anniversary. Many years ago, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Not in the early stage. And she went through the works. Surgery, radiation, chemo. At times, my mother says things were so bad during the chemo that she couldn’t stand her own body and would ask my dad to leave the room. He didn’t. Not for a single minute of those 15 long years when she fought her terrible battle, did my father ever leave the room.
There was little said between them.
About the disease.
Or about love.
But he was there for her, by her side.
And so, I wondered again…
What is this love-shove?
4 comments:
Absolutely true ratna! True love never needs a show. It can be felt by those who undergo it. No words spoken, no hyterical actions, but powerful telepathic understanding and belonging says it all!
Ratna, this template sure looks great!
Just a bit of trivia;
Lance Armstrong broke up with his wife who stood by him like a rock, after he won his battle with Cancer.
Sheryl Crowe and Lance were going strong till Sheryl, whimsically, decided that they should part ways for a bit ‘just to see how each of them feel’ and they did just that.
A few days later Sheryl found out that she had Cancer and Lance was, and is, doing fine without her.
Now she misses him and wants him back but he doesn’t seem to agree with this idea:)
M! from Caferati:))
Ratna,
Cried while reading ( about your Mom/Dad ) in the morning...came back to it again now...And yes, what is this love-shove anyway? How can someone who has gone though cancer leave a partner while she is suffering from it:(
Jaya
Thanks for sharing this very touching post with us.
I was also pretty shocked by the Shery Crow-Armstrong breakup. They seemed to be each other's strength during the years they were together.
When such a breakup happens, I suppose it is the lot of the romantic to get affected and possibly momentarily disillusioned. The pragmatic, with their ready American divorce-marriage ratios in hand, never suffer such jhatkas.
What was that about "it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all" ? I guess I will take that anyday to the increasingly cold pragmatism that I see around me everyday.
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