Love is Life

"She did not want to leave it yet" (270). The juxtaposition. The change in feeling. The change of heart. Olive Kitteridge wanted to live. Only a few weeks before, Olive explained, "I don't care if i die...I'd like it" (254). Thinking about it, I do care if I die, I am just not afraid of death. Vast difference. Death does not loom over me like a haunting shadow. I know that it will come, and that it remains inevitable. I can not escape it. My heart will "someday stop, as all hearts do" (269). But, unlike Olive, I do care. I want to fight for my life, try to live as long as possible. Live everyday to the fullest. I believe Olive's change of heart came with the sensation of passion and love. Laying in the sunny room with Jack Kennison, feeling nothing but love and wanting. It lit her spark again. She wanted to live. Author, Elizabeth Stout, claims that every human being needs to be needed. No matter how old or how young, love remains what keeps people alive. I have seen it with my very own eyes. My grandfather had found a soul mate. Although lung cancer took my grandmother away from him at the ripe age of 62, he had found another love.  Zella Davidson. They were madly in love with each other, spending all day together. They decided it would be best not to marry, for they both knew how old each of them were becoming. After a happy two years together, Zella was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer. A month later, she passed away. My grandpa was ripped apart. We all knew he was not going to live much longer after Zella died. He did not have anything to look forward to when he woke up in the morning. All of the compassion and love in his life vanished. A short four months later, he was gone. Living proof. Love is life.