With Valentine's day approaching, I suppose this is an appropriate topic, but not in the flowers, hearts, candy sort of way, but more a soul enlightening sort of way.
There are very few people who truly know how to love, at least in my personal experience. My mom knows how to love, and I'm slowly reaching the point she has achieved in her life. My dear friend Kit knows how to love. My uncle Bert who loves even his nieces as if they were his children. I've chosen these examples because they are truly the only people who I have seen who actually grasp the entirety of what it means to love.
My mom embraces her enemies for the good of a single soul, even if it is to the detriment of herself. She gives freely and self-lessly to those she can, to enrich the lives of those around her. As a nurse, she is the embodiment of love. She cares for people that she has no connection to, she gives them a little piece of her heart in the hopes of brightening the little corner of their life that she has the opportunity to inhabit. She expects absolutely zero in return. She loves my sister and me boundlessly, completely, without reservations, regardless of what our own actions.
Kit. In the short amount of time I've been lucky enough to know her, she amazes me. But most of all, the fact that each and every day she not only still loves her husband, she is IN love with her husband. She's not just comfortable with the everyday 'Welcome home dear' behavior. No, she still giggles with joy when he comes home. And her love for her son is apparent simply because of how he is: children learn by example, and her son is one of the most well-behaved, delightful teenage males I have ever encountered. You cannot tell me that teenagers today are a product of society and the media, and parenting has nothing to do with it... not with him as an example. I enjoy being in his company despite the huge age difference, because he is not a rude, condescending little boy. He's an intelligent thoughtful young man. That's what love gives you: a family. Not a husband, a wife, and a son co-habitating in a house. A family.
My uncle has always been a secondary Dad to me. Not in the intimidate the teenage boyfriend, help with math homework way, but in the "I'm always here for you, regardless" kind of way. Thanks to him, I survived a very ugly period of my life. He gave me the courage (along with my mom and my cousin) to leave my situation and start over. It doesn't matter that I don't talk to him everyday, I know I can pick up the phone tomorrow and call him, and he's there. He's always been my sanctuary. Love should be life-changing, but it should also be sheltering; love should be exciting, but also a security blanket.
All that being said: you cannot truly know HOW to love, unless you first learn how to be LOVED. That was the hardest lesson for me to learn. To have complete understanding that I'm not perfect, I will get mad, I will fight, but that I'll still be loved afterwards. Daniel has taught me that. Despite my faults, my temper, my stressed out OCD insanity, my bossiness, and my walls, he loves me anyway. He pushes past the bad and sees the good in me. That makes him a good man. But understanding that he HONESTLY loves me not despite my faults, but including them was absolutely eye opening. He embraces me for all that I am, and I now understand it. I know how to be loved. My mom tried to teach me, but your mom is SUPPOSED to love you in spite of your shortcomings. But for some stranger to come tripping into my life and be that person? It was a pretty amazing thing to me.
Love isn't about anything material or physical, it's about opening your soul. Let the good in, swish it around, absorb. Then let it out, let it flow around you so that those you encounter can experience it as well, it's meant to be shared.
