True Love

What is True Love? When asked that question most people envision a young vibrant couple walking hand in hand through a park with their whole lives ahead of them, unable to keep their hands off of each other, planning a future together, with smiles and excitement, with an electrical physical attraction. You can almost see the love bubbles popping in the air. But I have come to realize, during a very sad time, through the eyes of my grandparents, it is so, so much more. It is about a bond that is formed when sharing this journey of life with someone. It is about all the experiences, good and bad, that you march through, together, hand in hand.  It’s not about physical attraction, sex, money, materialistic gifts or romance. It is about the most pure, unconditional, deepest feelings about another human being that generates from the depths of your soul.

This week I watched as my feeble (sometimes confused) 95 year old grandfather approached my gravely ill grandmother’s hospital bed. Their eyes met and no words needed to be spoken. There was a stronger communication there then words could ever accomplish. I watched as he gently took her hand in his.  I looked at those hands, fitting together like a perfect puzzle piece and thought of all the things those hands have experienced together. Those hands first met and held each other almost 70 years ago when my grandfather came home from the war and had to break the news to my grandmother that her fiancé (my grandfather’s brother) had been killed in WWII. At that time, those hands held each other through comfort and mutual grieving. From that moment forward, those hands went on to hold each other through a first date, walks in the park, sharing a soda at the church dance, marriage vows, building their own house together brick by brick, sickness, happiness, financial woes, the death of their parents and siblings and the birth of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Those hands held each other through excitement and sadness, through trials and tribulations, through grieving and loss and through happiness for 70 years. No wonder they fit together like a perfect puzzle piece, they have been molded together by true love.

We tend to lose sight of what is truly valuable in life. We are caught up in this busy world of technology and media brainwash of what your life “should be” and what you “need” to be happy and what a “happy marriage” consists of. For Christ sake, there are books, magazines and psychologists that get paid money to tell you these things. But none of those things matter, really. What really matters is having someone in your life to share your experiences with. Someone to stand by you regardless of what your hair looks like or how much weight you’ve gained, just that one person who has experienced it all with you to be there to hold your hand when you need it.

We have always given my grandfather a hard time because he’s not the most romantic guy in the world. He never splurged on lavish gifts for my grandmother or romantic dinners; he has always been very practical. His Idea of a gift is putting new handles on the pots and pans and shining them up to make it easier for her to cook. But while we gave him a hard time, we were missing the fact that he really has given her the most romantic gift of all…. True, unconditional, devotional love. My grandparents have never been apart more than 1 night 1 time in almost 70 years and that one night he called her all night telling her how much he missed her and their family. Everything in their lives, they have done together. They share everything together and there is nothing they hide from each other (well, except the occasional $20 she slips in a grandchild’s hand on the down low).  :)

As I watch them both near the end of their lives I can’t help but be in awe of this true love I see before me. This true love that no hospital tubes and wires could ever come between, This true love that doesn’t need to be spoken through words or gifts, This true love that just “IS”. I hope that my grandmother recovers and that they can spend more days and nights together in their home that they built together with those beautiful hands and be able to use those hands together to help another great Grandchild reach for the cookie jar.  But no matter what, I am so happy to have been able to be a part of this life with them and to see the magic of what true love really is. I can almost see the love bubbles popping in the air……