Adventures of a Tribe

What is love?

Posted on October 3, 2015

When I love, I love big. I love with my whole heart and leave myself vulnerable. For me, the best part of loving, is giving rather than receiving, and I want to heal broken hearts, uplift those that are discouraged, and leave those around me feeling understood and cherished. Love is kissing my child’s knee when they fall, drying their eyes and making them smile. Love is waking early and baking bread so my family wakes up to the smell of freshly baked bread. Love is having hot chocolate and freshly baked cookies ready when the kids come home from school on a rainy day. Love is sewing matching Christmas pajamas. Love is sneaking love notes and treats into Danny’s luggage when he leaves for a trip so he finds them at random times. Love is sending him sweet texts throughout the day and trying to make him feel completely loved.

Love is working in orphanages, holding tiny babies who were abandoned in garbage cans and on doorsteps. Love is giving food and blankets to homeless and providing them with a warm meal. Love is working in soup kitchens with a whole lot of love and a big smile, so they don’t feel judged.

Love is unraveling fishing line from a sea turtles body and removing hooks from a grey reef sharks mouth, just to see them turn in gratitude, make eye contact, then swim away.

These have all been so easy for me to do and have come without thought or reservation. I realize now that the greatest and most heart wrenching love that one can show, is to love someone enough to set them free.  I have loved every second of my life with Jan. We have protected each other physically, and backed each other up in crazy situations even when we don’t have a clue what the other is talking about. We have felt each others pain, begged for each others well being, lied for each other and been each others confidant.

Through this final earthly journey with Jan, I have reached depths of love I never knew possible. I have ached more, cried harder, and prayed longer. I have kissed his head, held his hands, and felt his needs and discomforts before he tells me what they are. Today as I started him on morphine, I felt like I was betraying his trust, and not fighting hard enough in other ways. But the truth is, I am helping him relax, pain free, in such a way that his body can do what it needs and wants to do at this point.

This, is love. The bond and trust we have in each other, is Love. I am so grateful for this amazing man in my life. I am grateful for all our bruises and  black eyes, our spankings and bicycle accidents. I love our life together, because what we have experienced, is love at its finest. We have been so blessed to feel it.