Love.

Love. 

Two weeks ago we celebrated it. We dressed to the nines for it. We spent way too much on it. In our loneliness we might have even hated the idea of it. Yet we still obsess over it. We still crave it, desire it, and seek to obtain it. 

I was going to save this posting for July (hint hint), but, in truth, I just couldn't wait till then. For the last week a sickapocalypse it seems has settled in around me.  I, personally, had a second visit from the stomach flu, all of it causing me to give the whole "in sickness and in health" idea a real mental-undertaking. The thought that stuck with me in all of it was that love moves into sickness not away, love runs towards not away from pain. Love seeks to help, love seeks to comfort, love seeks to heal. 

Nothing rings truer to this idea than when I called my dad to simply say that, despite feeling like death for the past 48 hours, yes indeed I was alive. To my surprise, he wasn't where I expected him to be. He wasn't at work. He wasn't in a lunch meeting or out taking care of one of his projects. He was at the hospital with my mom while she was undergoing a routine MRI. He just was there. He just was there. He just was there because she wanted him to be. He just was there because she felt better with him being there. He just...was there. 

My parents love each other. They have loved each other since they were teenagers. "High-School Sweethearts", "Opposites Attract", "Married Your First Love", all pretty much sum up my parents relationship. 

Trumping any Nicholas Sparks novel, my parents are the real, true, bona fide deal. They met and fell in love in high-school, spent most of their college days trying to see if there was someone else out there better only to find that there wasn't, married right out of college on July 25th 1981 (now you get it) exactly 6 years to the date of their very first official date. 

Let me put it to you this way, at this exact point in their lives my parents have known each other and been together longer than the number of years they haven't been. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. More than any of that context or backstory, the profound truth is this: 

They still hold hands in the car. Even after all these years they still are in love with each other. 

Love. Real Love. Authentic Love. 

My parent's relationship is not perfect. Like I scribbled in my last post "Expectations", my parents, like all of us, created expectations, standards that neither one of them could meet. There has been pain; there has been suffering and uncertainty. Yet, despite it all there has been one constant: the conviction, the commitment, the promise of love. My parents chose to love each other in this great adventure. My parents chose to love despite all the obstacles, despite all the flaws of the other, despite the heart-wrenching pain that life can bring. They still choose this. I have seen and continue to see them choosing this. 

There is no greater safety in the world for a child than knowing your parents love one another. I am grateful and blessed by this safety, this protection and covering. It's this legacy of love that I am honored to be a part of. 

-Authentically Me