Thoughts on Love

January 16, 2024

By Eduardo N. Cordovi Hernandez

HAVANA TIMES – On December 8, 2023, at the age of eighty-two, Ryan O’Neal passed away in the city of Los Angeles, where he was born. O’Neal celebrated his birthday on the same date as Adolf Hitler and the Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who continues to celebrate happily. However, Ryan didn’t take up politics. He opted for an acting career, like Mijaíl Mulkay, another Cuban actor who shares April 20th as a birthday.

He almost won an Oscar in 1971 for Best Actor in the film “Love Story” directed by Arthur Hiller. Although he will be remembered for this, his performances in other films are notable. A couple of examples include “Paper Moon,” directed by Peter Bogdanovich in 1973, where his ten-year-old daughter Tatum became the youngest person to win an Oscar. Another film, I would say a cult classic, is “Barry Lyndon,” shot two years later by Stanley Kubrick.

However, “Love Story,” based on the novel by Erich Segal, will likely be his favorite for two strong reasons: Both protagonists, Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw, received Oscar nominations, elevating the work above the ordinary. The second reason: it is classified as a romantic drama, ranked ninth on the list of the most romantic films of all time by the American Film Institute. Most viewers love well-made and well-acted melodramas, such as this one.

I learned of the sad news almost two days after the event, while reading Irina Pino’s article in Havana Times titled: “The Blond God Ryan O’Neal is Gone,” and it reminded me of “Love Story.”

This movie left a mark on me because of a phrase I heard in it. I won’t spoil the film, but for those who haven’t seen it, it revolves around the romance between Oliver Barret (Ryan O’Neill), a wealthy young man, and Jennifer Cavilleri, Jenny (Ali MacGraw), a music student with little money.

There’s a scene where, after a brief disagreement or misunderstanding that almost separates them, Oliver, acknowledging his fault, apologizes and says, “I’m sorry.” Jenny responds, “Love is never having to say: I’m sorry.” With this, she offered a practical definition of love and demonstrated a certain emotional maturity. And to me, as I’ve mentioned, it seemed like one of those phrases engraved with fire, to always keep in mind… and I tried to align my behavior with it for many years.

After decades of existential, experiential training, trial and error… I learned that there are many phrases that sound good and impress you, and you’re grateful to life for coming across them. However, later you realize that they are flawed phrases that lead to error because they are inflexible, sounding like regulations, like a cooking recipe. Life is not like that. Following such schemes leads to a mechanical, automatic, robotic way of living, and the magic of “you never know exactly what will happen” is lost.

Stating that love means never having to say “I’m sorry” is false. We can avoid making mistakes, but what we can never do is always do what the other person likes because the reality of existence is the union of opposites. The coin has two sides, the rod has two ends, today we are fine and tomorrow we are not, today we are happy and tomorrow we are angry, today you are sad and tomorrow you laugh, perhaps for the same reasons.

We are both good and bad. We can’t avoid it; at most, we have to learn to live with it. We can’t banish our demons; we can only make peace with them. And love is the only thing that can do that, at least by saying: “I’m sorry.”

And one day you come across this other knowledge, a bit more real. You learn that love is precisely having the patience, perseverance, courage, and you could say, even the audacity, to be saying “I’m sorry,” “not seven times, but seventy times seven,” if necessary.

Perhaps the other person gets tired a bit earlier, and we should understand them because it’s not about strict compliance, as I said, but a limit that shows how far we are from perfection. It’s not impossible if at least two are willing to reach it. Love is that perfection. But no one said it was free. Everything in life has a price that is not always money. It’s time.