Love is Forever

Love; a word that cannot be defined.
A word whose appearance is not as it seems,
For if you find yourself all intertwined,
You’ll find that love will haunt you in your dreams.

A word that if could last forever more,
Would take away most sorrow and all pain,
Despite this, you would it never for
A world devoid of suffer, love would have no gain.

In this world all whom we love will pass on,
And their love for us may come to an end.
But love can boast an everlasting bond,
And near nor far on love you can depend.

The loss of loved ones is when love excels,
It lends a helping hand to say farewell.


For my sonnet, I decided to make a piece about love. In today’s world love is all around us, and is what ultimately makes life bearable. You could have all the material goods the world has to offer, but still feel like there’s something more to life. On the other hand, you could have nothing to call your own except your family, and you could feel like the luckiest person in the world. As humans, we feel a need to love and be loved by others. In Love is Forever, I tried emphasize how important love is to all of us.
In the first line, I started out with, “Love; a word that cannot be defined.” I wrote this because to define love would be impossible. Love’s the greatest feeling in the world, unlike any other. It can tangle knots inside of you like nothing else can, and it can capture your mind and focus 24 hours a day. That’s the reason I wrote, “For if you find yourself all intertwined, you’ll find that love will haunt you in your dreams.” I added the word “haunt” because that’s how love affects you. You can see yourself having a good time with this person in the dream, and yet when you awaken, you find yourself lying in bed all by your lonesome. And you end up doubting whether you will ever have this strong a relationship with this person. The purpose of the second line in the first paragraph is to state this. You would imagine that love would be all fun and games, but rarely does love not have its difficulties.
Despite some of these cons, it seems whatever pain you were feeling previously disappears instantly when in the presence of love. This is why I wrote, “A word that if could last forever more, would take away most sorrow and all pain.” If you could love someone or something for all eternity, pain would probably vanish. However, if you have never felt pain or sorrow before, how can you appreciate the true value of love? “Despite this, you would it never for a world devoid of suffer, love would have no gain.” If there were no pain in the world, love would be useless. Love helps us through difficult times, and without difficult times love would have no purpose. In the same way you can’t come to appreciate light without dark, you can’t come to appreciate love without pain.
Everyone in our lives will eventually pass on, whether we like it or not. And, when they do, we may feel for a short while that their love for us has ended. "In this world all whom we love will pass on, and their love for us may come to an end.” However, it’s in these situations that love truly shines. Although a family member has either passed on or in some other part of the world, you can still feel connected to them through love. “But love can boast an everlasting bond, and near nor far on love you can depend.” I really believe in this because whether it’s my sisters going away to college or the loss of a family member, I can always feel attached to them through the memories I have and the love I have for them.
“The loss of loved ones is when love excels, it lends a helping hand to say farewell.” Like I said before, love will help console you if you lose a loved one. In fact, this may be the purpose of love. You may have all the good times when they’re alive, but when they’re gone you become a better person. You become a better person because you learn how to cope with tough times. And, you always have those memories to look back on. Being mortal beings our lives will come to a close, but our love for one another will at last be what holds us together.

Sonnet

In my short life I’ve seen so many faces,
I can’t believe the one that I just saw,
Her hair’s like nothing I’ve seen other places,
It’s in her that I really see no flaw.

I saw her and I knew that she was mine,
I had to get her quickly home with me
Before another thought that she was fine,
The two of us would never disagree.

The way she greets me when I reach the door,
It’s like that of no other being I know,
She jumps on me while I fall to the floor,
Her whole face always seems to be aglow.

My dog is so important in my life,
That’s why this poem is for her tonight.

Sonnet

Love is a word that cannot be defined.
A word that has an often occurrence,
A word that can’t be summed up in one line,
A word for great comfort and assurance.
A word where if it could last forever,
Would remove most sorrow and all of pain.
At the same time, you would need it never,
As without pain, love would give you no gain.

In this world where everyone passes on,
Love will predictably come to an end,
But, love can have an everlasting bond,
And near nor far, on love you can depend.
Love is a word that cannot be defined,
But love’s a feeling that’s always divine.

Heritage Paper

Lei of Love
"Mom," I asked as we drove away from my great-grandmother's house, "Do I have to go over to her house for the whole day while you're at work?"
"Why?" She asked as if she didn't already know the answer.
"Because I get bored over there," I whined, "There's nothing to do except help her pick pikake flowers. Plus, I don’t really have anything to talk about to her. I'd even do math instead of going to her house everyday.”
"Com on, Kev," my mom pleaded, "It's only a few more weeks until you start 4th grade. And besides, you should keep grandma company. You know that she gets lonely every once in a while."
"Yeah, but…" I thought and thought, but I knew there was no way out of it. "Okay, I guess if it's only a little more."
"Kevin," she asked, "Do you know why grandma picks those flowers?"
"Yeah, so that she can make those flower lei she likes to make."
"Well, that's one part of it," she began, "Did you know that your great-grandpa built that house?"
"Yeah," I responded, "But what does that have anything to do with the pikake flowers?"
"Hold on, hold on, I'm getting there. He built that house as soon as my mom was born sometime in the mid-1930's. But only a short while later, he died of cancer. For your great-grandmother (Jane), it was probably the toughest time in her life. It was hard for her because she felt that he had given so much to her, and that she didn't give enough back to him.
"She kept getting more and more depressed, until she noticed the pikake garden in her backyard. When her husband was alive, he always took great pride in the garden's appearance. Times were hard back then for them, and my grandma wanted to use the garden for food and crops. He would always consider it, but in the end he would always respectfully deny her request. It seemed the two most important things in his life was his family then the garden. In the later stages of his cancer when he could support neither of them, he lost his will to live. She never knew the reason why he liked the garden so much and it never occurred to her to ask.
"After he died, Jane wished she had asked him about the garden. In order to help herself cope better and possibly find an answer to her question, she started walking through the garden everyday. She’d walk slowly, reminiscing of the times she enjoyed with her husband. One day while doing this, she realized that maybe if she could use these flowers that meant so much to her husband, she could become more at peace with his death. So, she thought of ways she could do this. Then she thought of the idea of making lei out of the pikake flower.
“After she started picking those flowers and making lei out of them, she felt more at ease. It was like therapy, not only did it make her feel closer to her husband, but it also gave her some alone time to think about the times they had together. So, she's been making those lei ever since.”
"But,” I said, caught a little off-guard, “Didn't my great-grandpa die like 50 or 60 years ago?"
"Yeah," she said, "That's how much your great-grandma loved him. So I guess in a way, her wanting you to pick pikake flowers is so that you can have a piece of his life, since that garden was such a big part of it.”
“Wow. Did this actually happen?” I asked, “Or are you just making it up so that I won’t mind going over to her house anymore?”
“I know that most of it is true,” she said, “But, if you really want to know the details about it, you’ll have to ask her tomorrow while I’m at work.”
“Fine,” I replied, “And even if I do get bored at her house, at least we’ll have something to talk about.”
This story gave me greater respect for my great-grandmother, and even though some of it is not true, it’s cool that there was some meaning behind her making pikake flower lei. After my great-grandmother died a few years ago, nobody took care of her garden, so we were forced to take out the pikake bushes in her backyard. Even so, the fact that she made pikake lei for my great-grandfather for more than half a century is a story I’ll never forget.