Maybe it's because I'm just back from a wonderful week with my family or maybe it's because I still have the warm fuzzies from the Christmas season, but I've found myself thinking about love and how it stretches and grows to encompass new people we meet and the way it changes and rearranges to fit each one in an individual, specific way.
Take, for example, the way I love my mother and the way it's changed and rearranged since I was a little girl. I started out loving her as "Mommy", the one person in the world who could make anything right, from a scraped knee or a hungry tummy to scaring monsters away in the dark. She was always there, ready to catch me on the first bounce and set me firmly back on the path I'd wandered off of. I grew older, and, as a teenager, I loved her as "Mother", as in, "My MOTHER says I can't go," (eye roll, hair flip, pout). I thought I didn't need her watching over me, but she was still the one I turned to when I had a broken heart or a particularly happy piece of news because I knew my hurts were her hurts and my joys were hers, too. Now, as an adult, I love her as "Mom" (or Mommy Greatest as I sometimes like to call her). She'll always be my parent, but now she's my friend, too. I see things in her that I hope I have, too, like faith, strength, determination and the stubborn ability to always find the rainbow, even in the midst of a raging storm. I feel protective of her now…when I was a child, I just assumed she'd always be there; but now I'm aware of life's frailties. And even though I'm an adult, there are times when I still want my mom.
I have siblings, too, and I don't get to see them nearly enough. We're scattered, I'm in Florida, they're in Virginia and Indiana. They're my support system…the people who will have my back no matter what...and I have theirs, too. I'm the oldest; and, as kids, I was the protector and the boss. Hey, God made me the oldest…obviously I'm destined to be in charge! Growing up in the country, we were each other's playmates and enemies. We invented games and laughed. We fought and made up. And we always loved each other. Even now, we can act like kids when we get together, deviling each other (as Mom calls it). My brother-in-law and soon-to-be sister-in-law have been added to the recipe of mischief, laughter and general mayhem…and underneath it all is the strong current of love, family, respect, admiration and friendship we have for each other.
I love my nieces and nephews…there, it's out! (Yeah, like it was ever a secret!) I don't have children of my own and never will, so they're the children of my heart….smart, funny, caring, obstinate, mouthy, mischievous and practically perfect in every way. I can still see them as babies and feel the way they fit in my arms, remember the way they smelled and hear the sounds they made. I remember sleepovers with Aunt Waddy (that's me), shopping extravaganzas, the tickle monster, car dancing, making cookies and listening to their dreams. They're teenagers now, and I still listen to their dreams and stand amazed at the people they're becoming. I love them so much I sometimes feel overwhelmed by it. I want to hold them in my arms and shelter them from life's hurts and disappointments, while at the same time wanting them to experience life to the fullest…and knowing that life isn't perfect. I want to give them their dreams on a silver platter, but I wouldn't even if I could because a dream worked for and slaved over is sweeter when it comes true.
It's amazing that my heart is filled to overflowing with love for my family, but I still have room for my friends, their kids, my extended family of cousins, aunts and uncles, the people I work with and any number of people I haven't even met yet.
Sometimes love is messy. I love someone who can bring me to tears just by typing my name, Laura Lee, in an email...someone who is in my thoughts a thousand times a day and so deep in my heart that he's part of my soul.
Geographic proximity has nothing to do with love, and love lost is still love.
The heart's capacity is never-ending…that's the miracle of love. I read somewhere, "Where there is love, there is hope; and where there is hope, there is life." Love is the root of everything.
In spite of my faults (and there are many), I am loved, and I am blessed.
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