1984

If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love. When the last of the chocolate was gone, his mother had clasped the child in her arms. It was no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more chocolate, it did not avert the child’s death or her own; but it seemed natural to her to do it. The refugee woman in the boat had also covered the little boy with her arm, which was no more use against the bullets than a sheet of paper. The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. --Geroge Orwell's 1984 

When Winston wakes up from his dream that convinces him he did not physically murder his mother, he remembers his mother’s gesture of the arm to protect his sister, as if by doing so it could stop her from dying. Winston also remembers the Jewish woman in the war film who, like his mother, had put her arm around her son as if it were bulletproof. He knows that this helpless movement of an arm does not alter anything, or makes any difference, but believes it to be nonetheless powerful because it possesses a natural feeling of love, sacrifice, and protection. He finally comes to realize what the Party has done to human beings.

That was what I wrote my sophomore year. I loved that line, " If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love." I still do. I have it written in my journal. Because it's so true, even in the scary world of 1984. Because love is nothing to be afraid of, because love cannot go away. We do not let love go.