Yesterday was the 200th Anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. I only mention this because I just heard the most lovely story on NPR’s Morning Edition about the possible reasons Darwin chose to wait 20 years to reveal his theory on the evolution of species.

From what I gather, it is widely known that Darwin came up with his “big idea” while he was in his early 30s. What remains somewhat of a mystery is why he waited so long to publish it. Historians surmise that it is likely that Darwin spent much of that 20 years gathering more scientific evidence to support his theory. But some also believe that Darwin waited so long as a result of his concern over how publishing such a controversial idea would affect his wife, his love, Emma.

You see, Emma was a devout Christian. In fact she, like most women of her era, believed that marriage was a union into eternity. That whomever  you married would be your partner forever in this life and in heaven. The problem was that Darwin had doubts about God, leaving Emma to contemplate an eternal afterlife in solitude. But despite their philosophical difference, they married anyway. They were in love and Darwin made the decision to set aside his own brilliant work because he was afraid “it would hurt her, it would undermine her, it would pain her for him to publish these ideas.”

Charles and Emma then had a daughter named Annie. She was the perfect manifestation of their union, taking on the best characteristics of each parent. They were head over heels in love with her. But like many meaningful stories go, there was tragedy. Annie was stricken with an unknown illness and died at the age of 10. Charlies and Emma were devastated and they found themselves changed forever.

After Annie’s death, Darwin went on to published the Origins of Species. As husband and wife, Charles and Emma weathered the maelstrom of controversy that ensued. It was not easy and the thought of Emma living an eternal life alone always haunted them. However, after surviving their ultimate measure of suffering, the two of them knew that any other bad experience in their life would pale in comparison. Instead of turning away from each other in their own grief, they turned towards each other in strength. They kept on loving each other in spite of their differences.

On this Valentine’s Eve, I want to put my intention out there. I am ready to be in love. And despite the sadness that love has brought into my life at times and despite reading the sadness as a result of love lost – I am ready to jump off the cliff and land somewhere ridiculously messy and wonderful and frustrating and divine. The beauty is in the fact that we keep exposing our vulnerabilities just to get a glimpse of it, no matter how fleeting and always with great hopes of longevity and perseverance.

After learning how to love myself, I think that it has made my heart more resilient. There are no more illusions of the “you complete me” kind of love. Or the love that requires you to be either in a state of agony or ecstasy. Rather, nowadays I am fixated on the Charles and Emma version of love. The type of love that people talk about 200 years later.

“There is grandeur in this view of life … from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

~ Charles Darwin

Tags: charles darwin, love