" What is Love"

My Definition of Love

This is Day 5 of the blog titled 30 Days of Me.
Today the subject is "What is your definition of Love?"

Well, what the heck is it?
I took an English - Literature class once. One of our assignments was an essay on personification; giving life to something intangible or without substance- A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
In writing that essay I had to consider what thing, or feeling, could be written about, and given life to, so that it became, breathed, took on life... I chose love.
It wasn't as easy as sitting down and typing it out and handing it in.
My essay was titled "Mother; Love personified"
I got an A+ and a note from the professor that she had never read anything as touching as my paper. She actually thanked me.
She was a mother. She knew what love was.

There are a lot of ways people love. There are a lot of things that people love. People, men usually, love their cars and give them names. Some people love money and don't mind killing for it. Some people think you can buy love and they lavish gifts and flowers and things on the people they care for... Sometimes those people find that tangible gifts are enough and they're happy as can be with their things. Some people only love themselves and without meaning to, hurt others who love them. Sometimes they just don't understand that it might be important to love self, but its equally important to nurture the love of those who also love you.

I love.

 I love my kids. I love my family. I love my dogs. I love my true friends. I love my bed. I love my hobbies. I love green tea with raspberry. I love fishing and camping and fireside oyster roasts with my neighbors on winter nights. I love winter and fall and the mountains... I love sunrises and sunsets. I love the smell of burning leaves and the feel of cool grass underfoot. I love the way the earth smells when I am working in my flowerbeds. I love the way the ocean smells. I love the way the air smells after it rains. I love storms and lightning. See, I've used the term love rather loosely here. I love these things.
I love a lot of people, pets, places and things.
But what -is- real, honest to goodness love? Is it just the feelings that you get when you kiss? Is it the feeling that you get when you look at something beautiful? Is it tangible?
I love my parents. When I was young I thought I was obligated to love them. I belonged to them, you know. As time passed I grew older and I grew up, and I realized that I loved them by choice. I miss them terribly. I grieved for them for a long, long time when they passed away. They were my friends, and my heroes and my role models.
I love my friend, Pat, who passed away. I think about her every day and I miss her more than I can say.

But what IS love?  - For me this is where I came to understand what love really, truly, means.
Love is when a mother carries a baby inside of her for 9 months, sharing her entire body's resources and doing it without compensation.
Love is suffering the agonies of childbirth, for hours and sometimes days, willingly heading into this realm of pain, just to hold your baby in your arms.
Love  is braving  the uncertainty of a future of being a parent, always wondering if you can do what is best for them, regardless of how much it hurts them, or you.
Love is spanking a child to teach them right from wrong so that they understand that there are consequences for bad behavior even though it breaks your heart to cause them even that little bit of pain.
Love is when you cry with them afterwards.
Love is when you dread taking your kids to the doctor because you know that the shots are going to hurt and you almost, almost, turn around in the parking lot and want to take a chance that they're invincible... and don't.
Love is delighting in the smile from a baby and getting a sense of euphoria from the sweet smell of their skin.
Love is a mother getting up in the middle of the night to comfort a crying child.
Love is when a father gets up with her.

I loved my babies and my husband, and I loved being a wife and mother. I loved everything about both, even though I had my share of complaints. I'm not a wife any more. I will always be a mother. No judge can divorce you from your kids. Thank goodness!
I love my kids even though they are grown and have babies of their own. They too understand what love really is. They learned, as did I, that it all came about when that first wordless, newborn cry demanded that you lay down your life for them if need be. At that moment, in that very instant, you realize that you would indeed die, on the spot, for that child, even though you've known them for all of two seconds. In that moment of time, when you see your son, or daughter, for the first time, you understand that you no longer own the heart that beats inside of you because as big as it is, it is now in the tiny fist waving triumphantly in the air...They do indeed own you, and you're ecstatic about it.
You breath. You sigh. You smile. You cry with joy, because now, you, lucky beyond understanding, are truly blessed to understand what love is...
It is a moment that you never forget.
Indelible, undying - Love.