Last night (7/2), I witnessed the most beautiful and courageous act of love: a mother kissed her son.
True, it is an ordinary show of love between a mother and her child. But it made me reflecting on such thing that I have done on natural instinct to love and to show it to my lover. The mother and son are Australian colleague of mine. She landed a quick kiss on the son’s right temple that transmitted a deep and heartening message: that the son is the most precious treasure she ever has … and a strong warning not to ever try to take that lucky boy away from mommy!
A few hours later I told him what I saw and what I heard. We love kissing and hugging each other every morning and every night and every other time and we are so used to it like breathing. Such simple acts of love make us longing for each other every time we are apart. Even a short time of separation makes us feel so lonely and longing for each other company. ”When people are in love they will kiss and hug,” he said. I am also enchanted by the fact that there is almost no difference between mother and her children and between lovers when they show they love each other. Am I doing such thing to him because of my nature of motherhood? Or because of the social norm which dictates our way of showing love to each other? Or because I watch too many romantic movies?
There should be more answers to the questions that I can ever provide. But for the romantic movies, I assure you that I can still use one hand only to count the numbers!
In my home country in Indonesia, the public display of the act of love like kissing, hugging or cuddling is discouraged due to the social norm which is an amalgam of religious values, the personal worldview and the genius loci. I also wasn’t brought up with this particular habit. The public display of the act of love is a “Western” thing and only those who are exposed to Western values will accept this and go on with it. Those who disagree with it may view kissing and hugging are all private matter. Having said this, we don’t really know how Indonesians show their love to each others except from the Indonesian movie scene *where two Indonesian men were seen kissing each other* and the more cheesy depiction in the electronic cinema (sinetron). And why people do not show them in public is the matter of discretion.
For me the most important is the effect of this act of love to the persons that give and those who take it. Particularly if done with sincerity and honesty, the effect can stretch beyond any human capacity can ever fulfil. It provides the groundwork on which we build our belief and our view of the world, and the courage to live the life that we choose ourselves. And if the positive impact outweighs the negative ones, why we deter ourselves from doing this?
