I remember when I was with my older cousin Sima when I was probably about 8 years old and she took me to Prospect Park. I was about 8 at the time and she was around 20. She went to NYU so she was nearby me and we frequently hung out. I loved how she didn’t treat me like I was an 8 year old. She treated me like a human being. She played with me and interacted with me not as an older cousin but as a peer; there was no competition and no judgements. We hung out every week and she was always taking me on some kind of adventure, whether it was going to a cool concert, going to the park, or going to a protest. She didn’t need to hang out with me but she always wanted to. I still remember the day she took me to Prospect Park. I was about 8 years old. She took me and my brother with her friends and we all had fun in the park together. She picked me up when I got tired, she made me a sandwich when I was hungry, and she spooned yogurt into my mouth. She showed me off to all of her friends. Love has no edges, borders, frames, it extends beyond the frame to infinity. As Bell Hooks defines it, love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth”. Sima made so many sacrifices for me; she drove me places, she took me places, she made me food, all this while she could have been doing other things. And also —  “Love is an act of will — We do not have to love. We choose to love”. She didn’t have to do any of this, she wasn’t my mother, she wasn’t my babysitter, she had no obligation to me, yet she did it anyway because she loved me.