When love is truly unconditional

I remember that unassuming and cool evening as well as if it happened yesterday. Another all-day long shift, taking charge of different rides of the amusement park where I was employed during my summer vacations, only to get a chance to visit the United States again. Only to breathe that air again. Only to experience more of the world and people sharing it with me.  

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It was almost the closing time and a fireworks display was well underway nearby and as a result the attraction I was in charge of operating was deserted. At some point, seemingly stepping directly out from the darkness, a black father came up to me asking if his disabled daughter could take a ride. After making sure that it wouldn’t be harmful to her I agreed and helped him to put the girl on the ride. Little did I know that meeting him would leave a firm imprint on my personality.

Almost mechanically, I pressed the red button and with the first movements of the sluggish machinery something more beautiful than the greatest movie scene imaginable began unfolding just in front of my eyes. The girl’s mother was standing peacefully in the background, while the father was shouting his daughter’s name all the time not being able to take his eyes of her, in a state reminiscent of a deep trance. You could tell that if a bomb suddenly exploded next to him, he certainly wouldn’t have noticed that.

In the meantime, his physically and possibly also mentally impaired daughter was smiling and laughing her heart out loud hearing her name repeatedly shouted by her father, but her happiness was nothing compared to the ecstasy that was experienced by that man. He was seeming to have been going through the best moment of his life, literally-the world’s happiest, most optimistic, satisfied and fortunate man. Despite the tragedy of his daughter, he didn’t show that anything could pull him down or that he was in any way less lucky than any other person around him.

Being a witness to such a mighty display of unconditional love, this whole situation was almost too much for me to bear and I was close to getting too emotional myself and only with the greatest of efforts was I able to maintain my composure.

When the ride was over, and the father came to pick his daughter up I wanted to let him know that unwillingly he has provided me with one of the most precious lessons of my life, but I was so emotional that the words got stuck up halfway my throat, but I don’t regret that, because people like him don’t do anything to attract the attention of bystanders or support of onlookers. They are the people who bring the light to the world.

Nowadays, we are constantly bombarded with cheap emotionality of TV series and movies, but the ordinary, harsh life often happening far away from the spotlight of the media, while all the others are “busy watching the fireworks” offers more true emotions than any artificial scene of love.