And So We Love

Note: This is written with gratitude for friends and family past and present and all those along the way whose shelter and kindness helped my heart learn this is indeed a wonderful world. I hope you will see yourself remembered or mirrored in my words.

And So We Love

Beyond all the seasons and reasons not to love, its in our bones,

to love.

When our kindness is thread bare and we need to rest, still we hold a hand and listen. 

Its in our bones, to love.

As children, we remember the knobby fingers, the warm hands

pulling the blankets around us in the chill of winter.  And so we love.

I remember the bitter icy night when there was no room at the inn,

and our family was offered an attic for shelter from the storm. Somehow, just in time,

love arrives.

I remember when you stayed up nights soothing our fevers, never tiring enough to leave our bedsides;

it was impossible for you not to love us. And so we also love.

Grandfather held my small body on his lap all the way to the hospital, holding back the blood

with his handkerchief so my eye could be saved.  And it was.

As a mother, how simple, how easy it was to feel my heart completely shorn of doubt,

holding you steadily through the blizzard to keep you warm and safe from fear. It was in my bones to love you,

no matter what..

Remembered and unremembered, I thank all those who had patience when I was so difficult to love..

and so I love.

We absorb the forgiveness, the seeming undeserved forgiveness, even a small moment

that brought light into a day of shadows. Love finds a way...

You touching something in me when I thought I was unreachable, because you listened.  

The prayer, not for myself but for you, that was answered..

The innocence of a small child who spoke the truth, and the bravery of a friend who told me the truth.  

It’s in our bones to know and be known… and so we love.

The willingness of a friend, a parent, sister or brother, to accept us as we are, beyond the apparent impossibility of the idea. 

As we so love, we are loved.

The day isolation was no longer safety but a deadening loneliness, you looked at me and smiled.. 

And for no reason I walked out the door, stretched my weary spirit, felt the sun on my face

and finally breathed deeply again. And so after it all, still I am love.

The strangers love, whose help brought me to tears because she knew me not, yet she trusted, somehow she knew  

..and so sometimes without reason, we love.

To all the strangers in the world who reach out beyond barriers of prejudice to help…this is what we are made of. 

No longer strangers, but one human family, bound together by an invisible golden cord.. and so we love.

Despite all the reasons not to forgive, we forgive.

It’s in our bones.

Its in our bones to need each other... 

And so we love.

Sophia

10-14-24