Many have defined love in their own ways, some have called it a beautiful feeling that makes one lose control, others have described it as an obsession, an addiction that drives one to insanity!! But what is Love really?? Is it just always thinking about someone else without ever wanting to, giving them a place so deep in your heart you can barely have any control left anymore or is it just waiting for a call that would never come, preserving flowers till and after they rot?? For me, it is the former that defines this most glorious of emotions, this epitome of the human psychology, this wonderful phenomenon that makes us rediscover ourselves in newer and more befitting ways!!
Talking about love, one can hardly ignore the epic stories of love, sacrifice and betrayal!!! The classics are full of tales of selfless love, wretched selfish romances (WH anyone), unrequited sentiments and the sense of pain and emptiness!! Amongst all the love stories that I've ever read or seen (and believe me, I've read plenty), one stands out as the most romantic and the most tragic, yet the strongest in its most critical phases!! It's an unusual tale of a love so deep it made his heart weep every second, a love so strong and powerful it led him through all the miseries and hardships that life challenged him with, a love so pure one can barely condemn it and a love so unrequited, he spent all his life trying to make amends for his mistakes and the way he wronged her without ever wanting to!! Such was the love Severus Snape held for Lily Evans, his childhood friend, his only friend, the girl who taught him to love, to treasure life, to live, even as his own family was nothing but a bagful of misery for him!! Yet bad company and some wrong choices distanced her from him forever, leaving him wanting forever, waiting forever, grieving forever for his beloved, the special one with the doe patronus who took his heart away and never gave it back, who made him the man he became, who gave him the strength to do what he had to do in order to have some sort of forgiveness, some absolution and a little peace of mind!!
The rest of his story is well known, how he lived and died for true love, a love so selfless he never really minded being misunderstood, misread, misjudged or misbehaved with!! He took all of it in his stride, courageously protecting the heir to those emerald green almond - shaped eyes, the son of a man he despised and loathed, the living piece of the woman he loved with every core of his being, every fiber of his soul and every breath of his life!! He died in the pursuit of the mission he'd made his life's priority, died by the cruel hands of a vain and selfish creature!! And yet even as he lay dying, he gave all he could to the boy who was his beloved's flesh and blood, reliving painful memories and recalling her in the twilight of his being!! He died and yet he lives for billions of people, for he epitomized love, made it immortal and ethereal by being who he was and doing what he did!! He may be a fictional character, a figment of a great mind's imagination, but those who have ever loved or ever will, can understand what a legend his love story was even though his feelings were never reciprocated, never returned, never requited!! In this age of selfish alliances, it warms my heart to have been blessed enough to read about a man who lived and died for love and made me fall in love with the very idea of love!!
Love ya, Sev!! and thank you, Jo for sharing his story with us!!
