Ill let you in on a secret: Love is not generally what we romance writers serve up to readers. Stolen kisses, heated touches, knowing glances, and the press of bodies--thats not love. Thats lust. Lust is petty and needy and selfish and fleeting--it is unreliable, base, and very often cruel. Lust blinds, cripples, and threatens to destroy far better things. What you want--what we all need--is love. Love is something warm, gentle, something tender that we should never take for granted for the good of our souls. Love is all that is good and precious. Its not always easy and its not always pretty, but it is truly and unequivocally beautiful. Love is waiting by your mothers hospice bed knowing that death comes soon but being unwilling to even let just the cancer-filled shell of her face it alone. Love is administering the final shot of morphine. It is the crushing and constant realization youll never be the same after her absence but fighting down your own anguish to help ease that of others. Love is forgiving and generous. It is changing bandages and treating wounds. It is calling doctors to get the best appointment time. Love is waiting in the hospital and wearing a brave face for your only child. It is holding your loved ones hair as he vomits from pain medications, screening his urine for stones, and fearing finding blood clots. Love is driving him to the ER when he cant bear any more. Love is worrying over him and hating any and all moments you ever wasted away from his side. Love is asking doctors so many questions your vocabulary improves. Love is paying hundreds of dollars to correct a cats limp because your son loves her and doesnt want to see her suffer. Love is lying sleepless at night and listening for your sons frightened cry because you never know when you might find him shaking violently and uncontrollably in his bed. Or on his floor because he tried to get to you. To find help. But his legs wouldnt hold him. Love is arguing with his doctor, challenging his authority, and finally working around him to get the referral you need to talk to a specialist. Love is the strength to get up and keep going even when youre certain you will break. It is the power to set aside all other people and things to be wholly with the ones you should. Love is prayers whispered in the darkest hours for kindness, tolerance, and forgiveness, for a gentling of all mankind. Love is sacrifice and love is learned. We must teach it, grow it, nurture it. We must defend it. Knowing the love that I have for my husband and son I would gladly trade everything else--past, present, and future--for more time spent loving them and showing them they are the best of anything in this entire world.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 19:08:04 +0000