I Believe in Love

At the end of the day, in the dark of night, in the still and quiet hours of early morning, alone in a crowd, all we have to keep us together is, love.

Love is a curious thing really.  The more you horde it the less of it there is to go around.  And the more freely you give it away, the more you have to give.

Some of us spend our love unwisely on material items, on hobbies, or only love ourselves.  In the dark, alone awakened by a bad dream, hurt by a friend, a co-worker, it is impossible to have your car, the bigger house, etc. to hug you.

There are those who spend wildly the coin of love, to keep or attain a person who doesn't love us back.  And for some of those, that person they want, is honestly a material possession.  Wanted only as a status symbol, the Channel bag, and so on.

The one enduring truth about love, is in a mother's unconditional love.  The shining beacon to guide our days and nights.  A truth to hold close, to bind the hurt, salve the pain, at least my mother loves me, is a cry into the abyss of loneliness.  And as a mother the idea of not loving your child is so far out of my comprehension as to be a foreign language.

The first time, each of my children was placed in my arms, a wave of love, crashed over and around me, filling every pore, every space between my cells.  The love I felt for my children was enough to almost break my heart.  How could anyone live with this much love filling them?  Hearing their cries, tugged on me.  Holding them and breathing in their sweet scent, calmed me.  Their warmth from their tiny bodies, kindled the fires in my heart.

But for so many, that truth is a fallacy.  The child is seen as an obstacle, a hindrance, a weight.  Some children are material possessions, something to brag on, just like their trophy wife, or dollar heavy car.  As long as the trophy child produces, there is love. A shallow, empty hollow love, but that is all the child is ever going to reap from this fallow field.  If these material possession children question the status quo in their home, want or need to forge a new path, the love is withdrawn. Throwing the child under the wheels of life, unable to believe themselves worthy of any other persons love.  If my own parents didn't love me, they cry, how can you?  Answering that question from a grieving child, no matter what the current age happens to be, is impossible.  If I am such a special person to you, why wasn't I special to them?

Yes we are like moths to the candle of love.  We flutter around the flame, needing it's warmth and light, and it's wonderful hope for a brighter tomorrow.  Feeding that soul deep desire for love, if we feed from a poisoned pond, can sicken us down to our very deepest core.  In searching for love, we often become waylaid by surface perfections that cover a damaged empty soul.  Looking only skin deep can lead us past a person of worth with a capacity of endless boundless love.  Superficial clues of beauty often lead to superficial love.  A wrinkle, softening physic, hair defecting the scalp, and they are gone, needing to feed from the fount of youth.

Why is this in my mind?  I am amazed at the amount of constrictions we place on love.  A dear internet friend has been thrown out like yesterdays trash by his parents.  His crime?  Turning his back on their religion.  They are exchanging their child, the visible expression of their married love, away for a book, a belief, a doctrine.  How can that be?  What truly benevolent God would expect parents to discard their children if they do not measure up?  Belief is often cyclical.  Stronger in youth, waning in teens, waxing in middle age, bounding forward in the golden years.  Allow your child to step away from your font of belief.  True belief only comes from questioning and deep soul searching.  The belief each of us holds is personal and snowflake different.  Keeping what is needed and important, discarding the unwanted or undesired, tailored to fit each of us perfectly.  In this time of one sized fits all mentality, conformity is the new measure of success.  And what we are most often successful at is losing what is important to us.

If you love someone, tell them, show them, make it clear how you feel about them.  Show them often, tell them often, bathe them in your ocean of love for them.

                                        Three little words, that can be spoken in one small breath, I Love You.