a little about love

I had lunch with Susan today. And in the course of a one-hour discussion which included food, raising children, ballroom dancing, and shoes, we tackled how to make husbands feel loved.

When they fight, she gives massages and sponge baths to make up. She is anxious not to make him angry, because she says she holds him in such high respect. They talk a lot, cuddle a lot. And she says she often tells him she loves him, because there might come a time when the chance to say that will be gone.

I do not know Susan well and I don't know her husband at all. But what strikes me is their willingness to take the present, now, to enjoy each other fully. Sometimes, in a marriage, one or the other is too selfish to share himself. It's 'Why should I give first?' It's 'What do you expect? He is not the hugging type, so there's no sense doing it when he doesn't hug me back.' 'Why should I spend time cooking breakfast for her when she has stopped doing that for me a long time ago?'

It's sad when we expect too much. But it's sadder when we don't do enough just because we think the other person deserves only a little of what we can give. Love, like most things in this world, is better if we give it wholeheartedly, with passion, with abandon, with an open heart. You savor it because you have the chance to give it and not because you feel like you deserve to receive something equally abundant. And it's not in things like using up your savings to help her buy that dream car, or giving up a career to stay home and have the kid. It's in little things like caring enough to know when he needs new socks, or boiling the water for coffee when you wake up a few minutes earlier than she does.

It's in little things like a massage after a hard day in the office, or a sponge bath when you're done fighting and you've made up. That's love.