How Love is Expressed

Written by Barbara Mascio

Love, the word itself is often overused and trivialized in our American society. However, love is truly amazing when you see it in action and then you will rarely hear the actual word.

Caregivers of the disabled and of the elderly will teach you that love is the ability to laugh at the absurdities of life. Love is the courage to ‘go with the flow’ in un-chartered waters. That love is the willingness to remain kind as you express your feelings without the need to hurt the feelings of another.

You won’t hear the husband say, “I love to spoon-feed my wife,” but you can feel the love as he patiently feeds her, without making her feel like an invalid. The daughter isn’t going to proclaim, “I love to bathe my mother,” but the fact that she does this while helping her mother maintain dignity is evidence of her love.

Love is when you help your child learn about Alzheimer’s disease so that he or she is not frightened when Grandma doesn’t remember her name or his face.

It’s love when your spouse automatically picks up the slack at home, without complaint, while you spend more and more of your time with your parents.

Those working within elder care and hospice are historically the lowest paid professionals compared to other vocations requiring the same education and skill levels. Is it not love when you choose to give of yourself without regard to income or recognition? Those drawn to this profession have a love for our elderly and cannot imagine doing anything else.

When you witness the daughters and sons from a family with a history of abuse ascend above all the pain to unselfishly give to a parent then love manifests itself as an eraser unwilling to keep score of a lifetime of errors.

You learn so much if you are willing to listen with your heart when conversing with an older adult. A wise and journeyed soul will teach you that ‘all is well’ even and especially when it doesn’t appear to be so. That what is ‘is’. And, for many, faith in the Unknown and the Unseen is the element of stability in our chaotic world.

Love brings you the kind of joy that words cannot describe, and at the same time, makes you vulnerable to pain. Though we all want to avoid pain, we come to realize that shielding ourselves from the possibility of it inadvertently blocks the opportunity of love in our life.

Love is an eternal gift - forever rippling from within you ~ to him ~ to her to him ~ to her to him to her, ~ forever and ever ~

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