Nov 04 2009
Love is the topic of the day.
It’s all about the love. My youngest daughter told me this when she was about six and I was having a bit of a tough time. She was sitting with me and gave me a big hug and said, “Mom, it’s all about the love.” She was talking about life. I was holding onto a lot of pain and maybe some anger at the time and the very intelligent little person she was could see that truth written all over my face. She said exactly what I needed to hear at that precise moment. I realized that holding onto the pain and the hurt weren’t protecting me or helping me or doing anything remotely positive. In fact, holding onto the pain, hurt and anger of the past was draining me of my life force.
I believe that we need love in order to thrive. For a very long time I thought that the kind of love I needed was the romantic kind like the one you see in the movies or in fairy tales. What I failed to understand was that romantic love is not the only form or the most important form of love. Love really does come in all shapes and sizes. Love is when you’re sad and feeling blue and your beloved dog comes and cuddles up next to you, knowing that you need the company. Love is when you come home unexpectedly for lunch and, forgetting her own plans, your grandmother makes you your favourite homemade cream of potato soup. Love is when a friend remembers your birthday with a warm hug or a friendly phone call. Love is when someone cares enough to send you a card or letter just to say, “Hey.”
Love doesn’t have to be grandiose proclamations or huge gifts or even a wedding ring on your left hand. Romantic love is nice, but it’s not the be all and end all of love. Some people live their whole lives and only briefly experience romantic love and, yet, they live a life full of love. My grandmother was one of those people. Due to unfortunate circumstances, she was unable to marry my grandfather. For my whole life and for many years before she lived without romantic love and seemed, strangely enough, to be completely content without it. She lived for the love of her family: her siblings, her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren. She somehow learned the important love lessons early on in life; love comes in all forms; and, real love is unconditional. My grandmother loved me no matter what I did or what I said. She loved me whether my opinions or decisions in life were wildly different than her own. She loved me when I did things I know must have hurt her or disappointed her. Nothing I did ever changed her love for me. That, blog readers, is real love.
The most important thing to remember about love is that it’s there all the time. Each one of us is surrounded by love in some form. Certainly some have more or experience more love than others, but we all, if we are open to it, have love in our lives. I’m not a religious person, but I do believe in God. There have been times when I’ve been completely broken and certain that love had abandoned me and my life. God was there and love was there. Love came in the form of a complete stranger, who seeing my need, sat with me and hugged me and cried with me and told me it would be okay and that I wasn’t alone. Love came in the form of a neighbour I’d never met who decided to help me shovel my very huge driveway on a very cold blustering snowy day. Love came in the form of acquaintances who offered words of advice and help in whatever form was needed. Love came in the form of the sun rising every morning and setting every night, showing me that life does indeed go on and that the sun does indeed come out tomorrow.
Love is here in our lives already. We don’t need to go looking for it. Love just needs to be seen, recognized and accepted for what it is – ever present, ever simple, and always pure.
