That God Love Tho…

In my 41 years of life I have had so many different types of love.  That nurturing Momma love… That protective Daddy love… That silly and loyal sibling love… That crazy immature (think you’re in love) teenage love… That friend love.  You know that one!  Those friends that roll so hard with you they become family.  Then there’s that birthing children love… The blended family, gaining a son love…  The adoring husband love; The kind of love that fills me up and lifts me high.  I’m finally experiencing that pet love, too.  I never knew I could care for a fur ball like this.  (Not a fan of animal smells but they are hella cute sometimes.)  I have yet to experience that son/daughter-in law love, that grandbaby love, heck, that old people love!  I pray we see the day that Robert and I are popping out our dentures in to say good morning to one another. 

Love has a way of affirming me.  Witnessing me.  Bringing me back to life and helping me to see myself from another perspective. 

My love for others has motivated me to compromise, to examine myself, and to correct behavior and patterns.     

I also experience love for art, music, culture, and nature.  I have been motivated and changed by love.  I have also been crushed by love.  I feel like most of us have-and live to tell about it. 

There is an act of love that still blows my mind when I recall it.  My Daddy was in home hospice and they called me to let me know that “it was time.” I hesitated when I got the call and my loving aunt reminded me that I didn’t have to come, it was up to me if I could bear that moment with them.  I decided I would never let my sister face something like that alone so I braved up and headed out in the bitter cold.  Upon my arrival, I greeted family as I walked through the front door and raced to the kitchen (I intentionally passed up Papi’s bed) to prepare my heart for what my eyes were about to see.  Knowing my heart was going to be deeply broken all over again,  I crept over to the head his bed.  I grabbed sat next to him, grabbed his almost limp hand and began to wimper.   The hot tears ran down my face.  Watching his body finally losing to his almost ten year battle with cancer and all I could say was “aye Papi” in despair and deep, deep empathy for all the pain I knew he had endured for too many years.  Upon hearing my voice crying out to him, he reached for my face.  He heard me!  I was sure upon my arrival that he was completely un-reactive but he heard my cry.  He heard me cry and he reached out to comfort one of his babies.  I’m crying again… even as I write this.  I just need you to understand this powerful act of love.  One so powerful that it brought him back from the death’s door, for just a moment.  One last loving gesture for his child.  His yellow butterfly.  Just one.  Last. Moment.  His body working so hard just to push the last breaths he could muster out of him yet there he was; comforting ME.  In a room full of family, that one exchange was just for me, just for us, to share.  The night went on as my sister and I held one another through the oh-so-familiar ache.  The last few hours we would share before becoming adult orphans.  Every time he stopped breathing, our hearts would sink to the floor, and then he would push out another breath, and another…  Hours of this until we both decided we could not bear anymore.  We both left to care for our own babies.  To shut our eyes for a few hours, long enough to trick our bodies into thinking this wasn’t really happening.  And the next morning we got the call that Papi shed one last tear with his final breath and it was finished.

“You called out to me and I ran out of that grave.”  I have been blessed enough to experience this from both my birth father and my Father in heaven.  Both times I have experienced my Daddy run out of that grave to rescue me, just one more time.

Love.  Is.  Powerful.  That God love is pure, transcending, healing…  It’s the love I hold onto when every other love leaves me numb.  It’s that Creator connection.  Love comes into our lives in so many magnificent ways but that God love tho…