It doesn’t. Love is a many splendoured thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love…? True, love is great. But this bullshit about love overcoming all obstacles? It’s not true.
This is not a rant, this is my example of why love does not conquer all. I had hoped it would; my naïveté drove that hope onwards through my childhood. But I know now that, while we all need love and it is a wonderful thing, love looses the battle with some things.
Something was wrong with my dad. My dad had been so close to my two younger sisters and I. He taught us history, philosophy, how to read and write and spent endless hours with me learning my timestables. My mom and him had a very very good relationship. They were, and still are, each other’s soul mates (I don’t even know if I believe in soul mates, but if there are such things, my parents were each other’s). Then, something was wrong with my dad. It was a gradual decline from normality into something that was unpleasant to be around. We couldn’t talk to him without being scared he’d get angry or yell. He spent more time with his goddamned truck in our garage than with us.
Living in the same house with him became so bad, unbearable, for my two sisters and I and my mom. He saw doctors and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was put on medication. Once he was on it, he felt better, so he stopped taking them, and the struggle to get him back on them was difficult. This cycle happened often; he felt better so he stopped taking them, which sent him back into his world. This is a common occurrence with people being treated for schizophrenia. Then, he just stopped taking them altogether. After being basically on autopilot for years just to cope, my mom told him he’d have to stay on his medication or he’d have to leave. He left.
My mom still loves him. She misses him. Her heart is in little tiny tiny pieces that are going to blow away. My dad misses us. I think he still loves my mom. We see him, though not often enough, and he lives in the next town over with another woman. The love is there, but the disease wins out over all the love in the world.
Love does not conquer all.