I heard a song the other day while I was out just running some errands. The words touched me so I thought I'd post them here and dedicate them to the woman that I love.
Jackie, you've given me life, meaning and provided me with a home for my heart. That means more than I could ever say.
Taking You Home
(Don Henley/Stan Lynch/Stuart Brawley)
I had a good life
Before you came
I had my friends and my freedom
I had my name
Still there was sorrow and emptiness
'Til you made me glad
Oh, in this love I found strength I never knew I had
And this love
Is like nothing I have ever known
Take my hand, love
I'm taking you home
I'm taking you home
There were days, lonely days
When the world wouldn't throw me a crumb
But I kept on believing
That this day would come
And this love
Is like nothing I have ever known
Take my hand, love
I'm taking you home
I'm taking you home
Where we can be with the ones who really care
Home, where we can grow together
Keep you in my heart forever
And this loveIs like nothing I have ever known
Take my hand, love
I'm taking you home
Taking you home
And this love
Is like nothing I have ever known
Take my hand, love
I'm taking you home
I'm taking you home
Love is a funny thing when you're trying to explain it to people. The nineteen year old has been with her boyfriend for ten months and was talking about their future together. The thirteen year old has a friend that's now eighteen and keeps saying that she needs a boyfriend. Even the nine year old asks her Mom and me about our relationship, sometimes. I've tried to explain to all of them about how I feel about love.
Love is something that is NOT a feeling. Love is much more than that. It's hard work, no matter how you look at it. It calls for action. It means doing things you don't want to do. Especially when you feel just the opposite. Giving of yourself when you feel like there's nothing left to give. But, fortunately, it also means finding joy in little things. An encouraging smile, a thoughtful concern when things are tough, a cold glass of something when you're thirsty or something to eat when you were too busy to realize you're hungry. Love can be painful but the deep contentment and self worth you can get from knowing you've done what's right, not what's easiest, can be the most rewarding thing of all.
It's true what the Bible says about love in I Corinthians 13: 4-8
"Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails."
It's not just Jackie that makes me think about love. It's the children. Maybe them especially because everything I do for them and every time I realize they're growing up and will, eventually, leave the nest. Parenting is the most rewarding and, simultaneously, the most excruciatingly painful endeavour in the whole of human history.
I agree with what Kahlil Gibran said in The Prophet:
"Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."
I want to see the children grow up and learn to live their own lives. To face the wide world, unafraid and prepared. The cruel irony is that I'll never truly be able to watch them do that without me feeling the pain and fear for them. I'll never be ready. But. I still plan on being the crazy, annoying guy screaming the loudest and telling everyone around me, "That's my daughter. Isn't she wonderful?"
I'll finish off this flowery, gushy blog with a flowery, gushy poem for my girls.
I'm a father
And I do the best I can
It's because of you
That I want to be a better man
I'll take on the world
And shake my fists at the sky
I'll teach you to run
And proudly watch as you learn to fly
Stuck here on the ground
With a broken wing that will never mend
My heart is flying because of you
I'll hold you up while you ascend
"Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter." ~Friedrich Nietzsche
