We often speak of love but what is it really? What does it look like? How do we know it is there?
My mother often spoke of growing up during the Great Depression. She remembered how her father had carefully worked to pay for their home in small steps starting with purchasing the land with cash. Then he saved enough money to build a home one room at a time until it was large enough to lodge a family of ten people. When the worst economic downturn of the Great Depression came, the family was safe because my grandfather owned the house and the backyard where he had been wise enough to plant vegetables. He had also purchased enough land to serve as a pasture for a cow that provided the family with milk. His job at a meat packing plant was a source of meat and while the diet that each person enjoyed was sometimes meager, nobody ever missed a meal. This was love at its best.
While my grandfather was working all day long doing back breaking labor, my grandmother was mending clothes that were handed down from one child to another. Grandma repaired old shoes as well, keeping a stock of cardboard boxes to carefully line the worn leather of the soles that had become dotted with holes. All the while there were meals to prepare and budgets to stretch so that none of the children went to bed hungry.
My mother often spoke of how her mother served everyone before she herself took a bite of food. Sometimes all that was left after the children had taken their share might be a few bits of meat clinging to a bone or the head of a fish. My grandmother would never complain as she sucked on the bone or ate the head of the fish. In fact she acted as though she had saved the best part for herself. Her love for her husband and her children was totally selfless.
My paternal grandmother was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer when she was in her eighties during a time when Medicare was not yet even a dream. The bills for her care were enormous and ate away at the savings that my grandfather had attempted to accumulate when he was still working. To pay for the doctors and hospital visits he went to work at the age of eighty eight installing rings for recessed lighting at NASA. When a manager saw the old man working on a tall ladder he was shocked to learn how old he was. He understood that my grandfather needed the money but still had to let him go for safety reasons.
After that my grandfather ran out of funds to pay the doctors and the hospital. The powers that be sent my grandmother home after instructing my grandfather in the methods for caring for her colostomy bag and her wounds. He nursed her for many months, never telling her how dire their financial situation had become. He collected debts and lovingly did his best to keep her comfortable until she died. it was only then that he announced that he would have to sell his home and his belongings to pay all of the people and entities that he owed. He would spend the rest of his life in a rented room but mostly he was happy that he had able to keep my grandmother feeling safe and loved without ever telling her how close they had come to being unhoused while she was dying. His love for her was apparent until the day that he died at the age of one hundred eight.
I have been fortunate to have been inspired by people who showed me how to love in the most powerful ways. Their examples have been a guiding force for me even as I have never had to work as hard or endure as much as they did. Then, of course, there was my mother who courageously raised me and my brothers alone after my father died. it was a Herculean task in a time when women had fewer options for earning an income than we enjoy today. So many odds were stacked against her and yet she never let on how hard it must have been for her. She made me and my brothers believe that we should have no worries as she magically and proudly made sure that we lived in a sturdy home and never missed a meal. She took us to church on Sundays, sent us to Catholic school, kept us in touch with our extended family and somehow helped us to always feel safe and most of all, loved. She never missed her night time ritual of tucking us in and telling us how much she loved us. In truth she did not need to profess her feelings because the evidence of her devotion was visible in everything she did from dawn to dusk.
Love is a beautiful thing found in small moments and sometimes big sacrifices that we may not even notice at the time. I often hope that my children and grandchildren understand how much they mean to me. I hope that they will see the legacy of love that has been handed down from one generation to the next in our family. We are certainly not perfect but the love is always there.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 