Loving and Being Loved

If we are able to love at all, it’s because someone loved us first and showed us how.

Maybe you were lucky enough to grow up in a loving family or perhaps you’ve had to gather your own ‘family’ of love and support along the way. But whether nurturing parents, interested and kind siblings, extended family of aunties, uncles, grandparents and cousins or that teacher/mentor/clergy/coach/counsellor who believed in you, the friend who got you through, the kindred spirit who lifted you up when you were down, the intentional community of support and understanding you’ve carefully built or the amazing spouse you were lucky to find, you are able to love because you first were loved deeply. You know how to love because you were loved.

It came to me one day when I was thinking about the evolution of my grief over losing Peter that what I miss the most is loving him. Of course, I miss the way he loved me, the way his thoughtfulness, support, comforting arms and nurturing ways made me feel loved every day of my life. But what I honestly miss the most is having him to love.

I believe that we human beings are made for each other, we are meant for each other. The African saying ‘Ubuntu’ translated as “I am because we are” or “A person is a person through other people,” tries to convey that we find our greatest fulfilment in connection, community, relationship and ultimately, being there for and loving one another. We cannot live without love and without having a place to grow, nurture and share that love.

When Peter was alive, I unabashedly lavished him with support, comfort, affection, passion, joy and love as he did me. After he died, it felt for a while that the well of warmth, kindness and caring that loving and being loved by him filled up in me had been depleted. But over time, as healing began to happen and I returned to life again, I felt it all slowly seeping back in. Eventually I felt full again to overflowing with love – but with nowhere to take it!

To add to the challenge, the untimely confluence of being widowed and not long after, sole-parenting teens who were experiencing their normal developmental stage of differentiating, pulling away and becoming independent meant I had a tremendous amount of love to give and far fewer places to give it than I had a few short years before! I thought a lot about it and a year later when a Chaplaincy job opened up at McMaster University, I decided to apply and ultimately, accepted it. I’m also fortunate because after all, ministry is the ‘work of love’ and I found in being there for that community of lonely and isolated students, grieving staff and alumni and stressed-out faculty many ways to give and help, which in turn brought meaning and purpose back into my life.

The home page for this section contains a quotation from a popular song (adapted) that says “I want you to be happier.” Above all, your person wanted to make you happy. They spent their life, their days and nights pouring out their love for you to put a smile on your face and fill your heart with contentment and your life with joy. Now that they’re on the other side, I believe they still want, they still would want that. They still want you to find fulfilment and happiness in your life – and the way to do is to find places to pour out from that huge well of happiness and joy that they helped to fill.

What might this look like for you? Acknowledging that what you had with your spouse was special and unique, are there still places where you can give and receive love in a way that is fulfilling for you and true to the joy you had? The answer is as diverse as each one of you out there! It might mean continuing things that you shared together or finding new ways to give. It might mean drawing closer to those you both loved or meeting new kindred spirits. It might mean exploring new inner and outer worlds of interest, meaning, adventure and possibility. It will definitely involve venturing out of your comfort zone into a new landscape toward an as-yet unknown horizon. But wherever it takes you, make sure it’s toward Love.

Every day when I drive my youngest daughter to school, I pass (on the way up and down an incredibly long, steep hill) a white-bearded, very elderly man on a bicycle we call “Bike Santa.” He wears some sort of reflective jacket and every day – rain, snow or sleet – he bicycles somewhere in the morning to do something and then does the incredibly arduous miles long journey back home in the afternoon. (The timing of his trips and his jacket make me think it’s pretty likely he’s a crossing guard.)

I never miss a chance to give him a wave of encouragement as I pass by and I wonder about his story. I’m sure he’s well past the age of retirement and it’s a pretty good guess that his life must have been touched by grief at this point in his journey. Yet every day he gets up and summons the energy (quite substantial energy, actually!) to ride his bicycle to do something he finds meaningful, almost certainly getting children safely across the street. He’s found a ‘work of love’ that gives his life purpose (and probably also gives him the heart and cardio of a 25 year old!)

As I write this second last piece on the Widows’ Walk, I have one child launched and another who’s 16. It’s not hard for me to look into the future and see a day coming soon when I’ll be permanently retired from active ministry and on my own after having a house filled with love, energy and people. And there will be a Christmas when my kids are at their in-laws, far away or busy with their own lives and I will awake alone on Christmas morning with snow falling in beauty and solitude outside my window.

When that happens, I can tell you, I already have a plan to get out of bed, give thanks for another day and go and share some love with someone! I’m headed to the soup kitchen to ladle out soup, I’m off to the children’s hospital with my little therapy dog, I’m taking my ukelele to the senior’s centre nearby (poor seniors!) I’m taking a page from ‘Bike Santa’ and bicycling up that long hill to recovery, hope, love and giving back. I don’t want to only look back on love, I want to look forward.

You, too have been loved so well, you’re an expert on love and how to share it. This old world is hurting and in need of what you have to give. It’s a beautiful tribute to the one who has loved you to keep on loving in whatever form it finds you. I wish you nothing but blessings and a sense of abundant love as you venture forth, the wonderful person your spouse fell in love with – and a whole lot more, tempered by their loss and strengthened by everything you’ve overcome.

Be like Santa and keep on biking! And never, ever stop loving.