Thoughts on Love

Valentine's Day is a holiday I love because I love to show my love.
SO, . .  it has got me thinking a lot about love. The older I have gotten, the more I have learned about what love really is.

I learned it first from my angel parents who loved me unconditionally and were always showing me they loved me. There was no question in my mind that my parents loved me.

My Mom is hardworking, brave and gentle. She always fought for me to experience the best things in life even when she couldn't afford it, it wasn't a question for her she just always gave my siblings and I the best. She took me skiing, boating, every theme park imaginable and taught me to love life and all of the beautiful things it had to offer. She showed us love by giving us valuable experiences that shaped everything about me today. She would do anything for me, there is no question at all in my mind. She loves fiercely to the death, no matter what and it shows in everything she does. I often think about how lucky I am to have her and how she has influenced everything about me today.  I look up to her so much and have been so blessed by her. 

My Dad taught me to love in a different way and won my heart over as a little girl with the way he would serve me. A few memories that stand out are when he would make a 2x4 bridge over the puddle that gathered in our driveway when it rained. He wanted to make sure that when we got off the bus we were able to safely get over the puddle and it melted my heart even at eight years old. In fourth grade when I had an assignment to make a model mission, my Dad drove me all over town with him looking for the tiniest details to add to our project. I remember buying tiny trees, animals and bells for the bell tower. We drove to countless stores looking for the right bells that would fit perfectly inside the tower we had made. He listened to me and validated the thoughts I formulated at a young age to make me feel smarter than I really was.  He was and still is a rock for me today, always full of wise perspective and connected to the heart of what really matters. Sometimes when I call him now, I have to try really hard not to get too emotional and cry. He makes me feel safe and the little girl inside bubbles out into tears of missing him. 

I guess you could say that because I felt loved, it was easy for me to love others.  I mean I truly LOVED all of my siblings and I tried to always build them up the way my parent's had done for me. When I was 16 years old my ability to love was tested a little bit when my parent's decided to get divorced and quickly after remarry. The divorce is an entirely different post but suffice it to say, I think I recovered ok and was able to love the new spouses that my parent's chose.  I got really lucky, they are remarkably kind and good people but new marriages meant new step siblings, 10 of them in fact! It did help that I knew four of them because well, one of them was my best friend Jenn and her three sisters who I already felt close to. The day they moved in I remember having strange tender feelings and just knowing that it was sink or swim time and I was going to swim. That meant opening my heart fully and totally to them as my actual sisters.  I would defend, love and take care of them to the death just like I had done for my own sisters. And I can honestly say that I did. I have poured out my heart in prayer for them when they have needed it which has only made me love them even more. Sometimes I would get hurt by being so vulnerable and sometimes I still do but I couldn't ever imagine closing myself to loving them. To this day, I love them and hope they know and feel that I do. In my mind they are my actual family and when they have success, it feels like my success because we are family. 

Living with 7 teenage girls in my home prepared me really well to have roommates in college and I just took them in as my sisters too. They are my closest confidants to this day and I really really do love them. All together I have had over 25 different roommates and I grew to love them all.

When I became a Mormon Missionary in Cleveland Ohio I had a sister companion with me at all times. They were easy to love, I had had a lot of practice by this point but something that I wasn't prepared for was opening myself fully to love the people of Ohio from all walks of life and even the ones who slammed doors in my face and told me literally to go to hell. I was surprised at how easy it was to love these people, I mean I was thinking about them, praying for them and talking about them constantly and it felt like I was invisible to the world and working behind the scenes to cheer them on in their search for truth and path to better their lives. As a missionary I really didn't have a life, every second of my life was dedicated to being the hands of the Savior to lift and encourage others. How could I not love the people I was serving? To this day I have their faces in my mind, some in my wallet and always written on my heart to help me remember to make choices to be worthy of their respect. Loving them changed me more than they will ever know.

Of course now I easily love my babies and my husband. They are easy to love, and sometimes not so easy but for the most part they are the easiest because they are the family I chose to love and they love me in return. But loving is more than loving someone who will give you something in return, it is about loving them regardless. 

When I go about my day I see all kinds of people. People who are alike and different from me and I try to make a point to look them in the eye and love them, smile at them, talk to them and teach my kids to do the same. I try to strike up conversation with anyone in my path, I have learned to love people and I do it because I am interested in them, invested in them and want to know about them. Elevators, gas station and grocery store lines the reaction is always the same, they wonder why I am talking to them. Some people just ignore me, others are gracious and kind but 100 percent of the time they are surprised that I ask how their day is and make small talk. I admit I am naive but I do this because I hope that I am making a difference and that one small positive encounter and brief connection will inspire others to open their heart to love the stranger in the waiting room at the doctor's office or help the person in line at the grocery store load their groceries on the belt. 

Once in a while I come across an angel in my day who does this for me. They look in my eyes and I can feel that they care for me because I am in this world struggling with them side by side with a common enemy not in a race as each other's enemy. They inspire me, they are the glue of the world and we need more of it now. We are all fighting a battle we are all just hanging on and we all need to be loved.