Letter: What Is Love Anyway?

My wife and I had given it to our little granddaughter.

It was the softest, impossibly long lop-eared, scraggle-furred, stuffed rabbit, affectionately, and appropriately – per the tag – named ‘Harey.’

When my wife died our granddaughter gave it back thinking perhaps that I was lonely.

I was.

So, dutifully, to humor our granddaughter, when I make my bed each morning and return the two pillows – though anymore of course I only need one – to their proper place, I finish the task by tucking Harey snuggly beneath the blankets.

The little critter’s reflective pose this morning got me to thinking what it might be thinking, as it didn’t appear to be asleep. One ear in fact had much the appearance of an antenna, turned up and out as if attuned to something it was hearing, processing, remembering.

And I think I know what it was.

Love.

At least that’s what I was thinking about.

What is it after all, this thing called love?

Like a horse and carriage, Frank Sinatra sang, love and marriage go together.

Seems rather simple and straight forward.

But, and I’m here to testify, in love and marriage we sometimes – ok, oftentimes – get the horse before the cart.

When that happens it’s still a marriage of course as both components are still present -horse and carriage – but it certainly isn’t what it could be, nor should be, any more than the horse and carriage are going to make much progress when things are out of order.

Replace the horse and the cart with truth and mercy – in proper balance – and there, I think, are the two essential, do-not-leave-home-without-them, ingredients for what love is.

Truth be told, truth alone can get you in trouble. Mercy, alone, also, can be hardly more than shallow sentimentality.

Truth and mercy sound like divine qualities and they are but they are also our responsibilities to someone we love.

The Vulgate – which is “a late fourth-century Latin translation of the Bible that became, during the 16th century, the Catholic Church’s officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible” makes the two graces human, not heavenly.

Loving someone is a life-long journey down a sometimes rutted road where truth and mercy are our commitments to each other.

In other words, when you genuinely love someone, their mistakes are matters that might make you mad, but you love them enough, you care for them enough, that gently you have the conversation that sensitively communicates with your heart how the wheel that has come off the cart can be restored.

Someone like that is really something.

Someone you don’t have to hide parts of yourself from is everything.

Someone like that is precious, to be adored, cherished, and treasured beyond their imagining.

That’s someone with whom to travel life’s road.