What does love mean? The answer will differ depending on who you ask. If someone is alone, emotions will pour out for a partner, a friend, or a family member no longer in their life. If they have children, parental love moves them.

But what about the other kind of love that life gives you? Take a stranger with sullen eyes and unkempt appearance you always see, but quickly pass them by. “Poor soul. Tomorrow I’ll bring some change to give them,” you think. You forget the change day after day, and one day, you don’t see that stranger again. Do you ever wonder what happened?  Do you take that change and give to the next unhoused stranger? Or, what about a dear friend’s actions and words that destroyed what you’ve built? You stand paralyzed. There’s no instant fix, except to take a deep breath, and start all over, one painful step at a time. Do you realize change is good, even though patience and will-power are tested? Believe me, I’ve stood at the doors of all these precipices, ranging from love, anger, despair, and regret. I wish I could change so much or had listened more to my intuition.

The love for family is easy for me. They are a part of my DNA, my life, my soul—and without them, I’d be completely lost. The love for friends, who have stood by me with compassion, understanding, and acceptance of who I am—is, and will, always touch me.

But what I struggle with, and to be honest, is the difficulty to love someone who can’t and won’t say the words, “I’m sorry.” It’s either no admission of their inward guilt, shame, ignorance, or willful denial of what is plain and clear, as one being to another. The refusal to repair what has been done, and settle on the other person’s fault, is a reminder of how the world is shattering into an unlivable existence.

As an observer, on a quest writing a collection of stories about human nature, I’m unable to shake the ugly shade of love in my home country. My silent tears observe racism and unforgiveness against people reaching for hope, to touch the sun’s rays of tolerance. When friends turn on friends, when differences are stamped out for more important values and authority, when countries tug and pull at each other, and when stories are written record a darkness replacing the sun’s rays—we have to, and need to: listen and stop a viral madness.

Love, tolerance, compromise, and the words, “I’m sorry”, can’t be held to the same standard as hate, self-service, and lies—if so, then the deepest shade of love is no color at all.