I’ve watched some very lovely people in my life go through some very painful experiences this last week.  They involve loved ones. I can feel their pain even though it’s not mine.

Love – which we all know is the most beautiful life experience can also be the most painful, and all in the course of a nanosecond. Love’s a tricky thing. It varies in intensity and in the specificity of emotions. 

It’s odd how one thing could be the cause of so many contrary feelings. But that’s what makes love so beautiful – it’s the closest thing to perfection that exists in the world and the only thing that can easily and comfortably encompass both good and evil, beautiful and ugly.  I think love is the closest thing to a flawless whole that we’re a part of.  Yet there are times when love rips our heart out and throws it to the curb … forcing us to walk quietly over, pick it up and restart our lives.

When we think of love, we think of the happy kind of love, the kind that’s the beginning of something beautiful – something that breathes life.  But there’s love after death too.  Tonight I was looking for something and came across pictures of my mother.  I couldn’t help but start crying.  My love for her 16 years later feels as powerful as the day she died.  My son’s response, “I’m going to feel like that forever for you too.”

How about the pain of our kids pain.  We love them so much – we’d give our life for them.  But they make choices.  Choices that aren’t our fault. Choices which sometimes cause us and them so much pain.  But if we didn’t love them, we wouldn’t feel it. And, because we love them we have to find the strength to let them go to work on their problem. So ung-dly difficult.

How about falling in love or being in love?  It changes the colors of our day, it puts a smile on our face and a spring in our step.  We’re reminded that nothing’s better.  It’s like a legal drug with no side-effects!

How can we not talk about how we take care of those we love as they’re leaving this world.  How the gentleness of our energy engulfs them through the process.  Death should not be without love.  I feel sad when I think of people dying alone – literally and figuratively.

My point?  I don’t have one.  I (as you all know) love love.  I want to give out as much as I can and I’ll accept whatever you’ll give me!

Maybe I just want to be reminded that working hard, making money, being on time for this or that – none of it matters without love. And even though those we love can hurt us the most … I’d rather have that pain (which is always short-term and controlled by us) then not be loved at all.  Don’t you agree?

XOXO