Love
in the Open Hand ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary: Janeway’s letter to her daughter. Part 1 of 2 in the Letters to Aeanor series. Dedication:
For my own future children and the love that I hope to give to them. My darling Aea, You had a name long before you were born. You were a dream your mother and I longed for with quiet anticipation; you were to be the best part of our souls and the greatest thing we could ever accomplish. We decided to name you Aeanor, a Vulcan word that means “Love in the Open Hand”. A lilting word in such a structured and logical a language, a very old and beautiful word seldom used by a stoic people, a word for the kind of love I had imagined as a 13 year old; lying in the Indiana sunshine, reading the poem that I would someday recite when I married your mother, the poem that bears your name… Not
in a silver casket cool with pearls, Not
in a lover’s knot, not in a ring Love
in the open hand, nothing but that,
Your mother was unrepentant and unyielding. She loved me thoroughly and efficiently. She loved me even if I didn’t love her. Even as i yelled at her or fought with her, even as she cried over something I had said or done, she loved me. And she never stopped or regretted loving me -- not when it hurt, not when I put other people before her, not in the countless petty break-ups that marked our years together. Like the telemetry your mother created to bring Voyager out of the darkness of the Delta Quadrant, your mother’s love guided me home to my true self. Her love lit up my life quite suddenly, as if the moon suddenly came out of a lunar eclipse and the stars all crowded to greet it. Loving her lit up the dark, forgotten corners of my soul and made me face both the beauty and the grime that had become part of who I was. I had wanted to change for the better for a long time, but it was only when I loved your mother that I began, simply because I knew it was possible. However, you shouldn’t think that loving your mother was all hearts and flowers. It also involved a great deal of painful soul-searching and growing pains. I had to come to terms with who I was, screw up the courage to choose to love her, and deal with the realities that seemed to muddy our future and yours. I want you to know that my love for your mother has always been very real. I never thought of her as an “experiment” or a “fling”. When I finally allowed myself to fall in love with her, I realized I wanted to spend my life with her. Our love has always felt right; it’s the one thing that made me feel that there was such a thing as destiny. But I also want you to realize that as Captain of a ship lost in uncharted and often hostile territory, I was responsible for the lives of over a hundred people. I had a duty to the crew, and your mother understood and accepted that. Perhaps when you read this, you may doubt, as children do, that I am anything but a solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg. Perhaps you will say, as young women often do, that love is paramount above all. But what you call love is nothing but passion. No my darling, real love – true love, the love for which you were named is not only giving and unafraid, it is also founded on integrity. I have always been committed to living with integrity -- adhering uncompromisingly to my moral code, to standing fast and remaining unshaken by any altered circumstances, to living with honor, to do my duty in all things and never wishing to do otherwise. The unbelievers of the world scoff at such words and ascribe it to mere flamboyancy, but you and I know the truth: that when it comes to one’s character, one cannot compromise or bend. It is not greed or power or passion that will ultimately make or break you, it is character. And it is character I am trying to develop so that I can teach it to you. The most important lesson in life is to learn to be strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid, to know the absolute necessity of being proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and sacrifice of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion for those who fail; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh and be grateful whatever the circumstance; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.
It
is this integrity and this love that allows me to give you the best
gift I can give you. No replicator can make this gift, no space station or exotic planet will have a trader that can sell you this. My gift to you is a promise, a promise that I will always love your mother. My gift is a solemn oath to wake up every morning loving her and to protect that love tenderly, cupping it in an open hand. Always, |