I Learned Love From These Two Kids

Red hearts Bow Tie o’ the Day is ecstatic to be chosen to present this picture of Mom and Dad. They were probably 15 or 16 when this photo was snapped, and I’d bet bigly money this is a selfie taken by Dad.

If you saw my parents together, you saw something wild with life. They played their humor off each other like a vaudeville comedy team. They supported each other’s whims. When they looked at each other from across a room, even in public, you could see absolute brightness in their eyes.

In a time when it wasn’t always okay for women to work, make important decisions on their own, and speak their minds, Dad thrived on Mom being her spunky self. He encouraged her in her endeavors, and he watched with pride as he saw her conquer thing after thing.

Once, to her friends’ amazement, Mom went to the car dealership in Delta and bought a new car on her own, while Dad was in California working with his bees. Dad was fine about the purchase when she told him she had picked it out and bought it. He figured she must have needed it. They trusted each other even to make decisions that affected the whole family.

Of course, they had their disagreements and bumpy times. Of course, they huffed and puffed at each other from time to time. But it was always obvious Mom and Dad were in a deep, wide, tall, true love.

There are billions of things in the universe I don’t know. But I know this truth: I am the daughter of a grand romance.

Woof! Woof! Love!

The wall-hanging in this photo has shown up in the background of a lot of my post pix. It dominates our living room, on purpose. Mom chose a similar saying for the back of her and Dad’s headstone. The gist of its message is the over-arching truth with which I was raised. And it still frames the way I try to live my life.

To love and to be loved are not two separate things. Happiness comes from making and keeping them one thing together. (I’m not just talking about romantic love.) We love who we love. And we want their love in return, but we often don’t allow ourselves to accept it. Too often we don’t feel worthy of it, or we push it away because we don’t want to risk the chance we might get hurt. Loving and being loved is definitely going to have its pains, but think of them as growing pains. That’s what most of the hurts are. They are signs a relationship needs some overhauling in order to grow. So work on it. The payoff will happen if both parties are willing to give and take the love the work requires.

You can find love all over the place. For example, I’m wearing dog bones Bow Tie o’ the Day in Valentine’s Day honor of all the mutts in my life who have loved me. And in honor of my skittish Skitter who is snoring beside me as I type this post. She loves me even in her sleep. Our dogs simply love us. And they so clearly assume that we will love them back. They trust us. They expect us to befriend them and care for them. They make us better people because we cannot help but melt in their presence, like we give ourselves over to any baby that is near us. We coo at dogs. We talk to dogs in our baby-talk voices. We want to feed dogs and touch them and protect them. We want to cover them in warm blankies. Dogs pull the best parts of our hearts out into the open.

With my bipolar head, sometimes I feel lost and foreign even to myself. Having a dog around when I’m on one of my mental extremes can make me feel like I’m at home in myself, even if the feeling comes and goes. Even Skitter, who was severely abused before she rescued us, makes me feel at home in my bipolar self– just by following me around, or doing her chew dance, or prancing to the mailbox with me. Skitter’s abuser could not destroy Skitter’s capacity for love. That’s how strong love is. I can’t help but exude love for her. She brings out the baby-talk in me. “Skitter, are you ready to go walkie?” The love goes both ways. That’s happiness. Her giving and receiving love is healing The Skit. It changes me. It strengthens an attitude that stays with me in my dealings with my fellow beings.

Perform love, wherever you go. Let your love rain down like glitter from the heavens.

That’s my sermon for this morning, and I’m sticking to it.