Painted Love

As a child I had this very tainted view of what love is. My parents were constantly in survival mode. They had 3 kids, and most days the question was if we were going to have cereal for dinner, again, or if we should save it for the morning. There were nights in cars, shady motels, and nights where people took us in. When the could, in their own ways, they showed us love. Perhaps not in the traditional ways that other parents can show love. They tried, as an adult I see that, as a child it was hard. It was difficult in the days of uncertainty of where we would be sleeping next, or the nights of yelling, or the nights in which we were all just scared. Love to me has been more like survival than it has been anything else. Along the road there were people that loved us, loved our family in ways that my words would never do justice. I wouldn’t find out till I was an adult, just how much these people in my life when I was a child, loved my family. I sat in a country home an hour outside of New York City, listening intently as stories of my past were revealed to me by a woman and her husband, who decided at some point, despite all they were going through, to take our family and love us. I remember being taken to lunch by a woman I still affectionately call my “grandma”, a woman who has loved me since she met me, when I was just an infant. A woman who opened her house to our family when we needed a place to stay, and never asked for anything in return.

As an adult I feel as though my understanding of love is very real, and raw. My husband has taught me more about love than I ever imagined possible. Most newly weds start off marriage in this awkward, stumbling kind of way. There are plans, a new house to get used too, there are thank you notes and tiny arguments that pop up, all part of that newly wed experience.  My husband and I didn’t have that. We were married, we went on a honeymoon, we came back and I almost died. Looking back on it I don’t know if I ever realized how severe what I went through was. A day after we got back from our honeymoon circumstances would unravel that eventually leave my husband and I in an emergency room with a doctor telling us that my blood had turned acidic and that at any moment I could slip into a diabetic coma, or worse. Prior to this, I didn’t know I was a diabetic. It seemed to be unfair. We were newly weds, and now in this moment I had to worry about what if I didn’t make it? And what about my husband? My new, wonderful, loving, caring husband.

We worked for survival. We made it through that night. We made it through several more. My husband worked endlessly so that he could provide, because I was barely able to get out of bed on most days. He never complained, we never had an argument, we were in survival, and that is when love is the most pure. When every thing small and insignificant  is tossed aside, because there are so many more important things to worry about. When you really and truly understand that a life with out someone is unbearable and tragic, is when love surfaces in the most profound of ways. My husband and I, five years later love each other, knowing that our lives are fragile, that each day is truly a beautiful and spectacular gift we have on this earth. We decided, through survival to love one another in millions of ways. We sing to each other daily, dance, we say I love you more times than we can count, we learned early on that no day can be taken for granted. In the short time we’ve been married we’ve gone through a lot, but each day we sing. Each day we dance, each day we say “I love you”. The small stuff is too small to get in the way of love. Love should be shouted and painted and sung about. Love should be what at the end of the day, remains. What else is there? Often I see people, who get caught up in the daily stress of life, who complain and mourn their life circumstances, and while they might have valid concerns, I ache for them. I ache for them because all of that energy into the realization of all that is going wrong, can be focused and realized into a single act of love. Today, go and love someone. Love someone that you have not before, love someone that you have loved all your life. Life is a series of circumstances mixed with profound timing, to let in people, for you to love.