"love has no pride..."

"Love has no pride,
when there's no one left to blame.
And I'd give anything
just to see you again..."

My friend George posted this video of Bonnie Raitt singing her hauntingly beautiful  "Love Has No Pride"  with David Crosby and Graham Nash at the 25th Anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert in 2009. It took me apart. I am still sniffling.

This will be one of those posts that you will only find if you are looking beyond what is right at the top of this blog. I do that when I need to say something, but don't really know how I feel about it being read. I will write another post right on the heels of this one and post it quickly. Most people will not scroll further.

Here is what I need to say. I have loved three men in my life.  They were men I hoped I would love for the rest of my life. And I will. I will not be married to them -- but I will love them.  

The reasons that those relationships were not my "last great love" is not important, other than to say I was not an easy person to love or live with. I was afraid of being rejected and abandoned -- every day. And without intending to, I made sure that I'd have a reason for that rejection when the time came. Jeff will tell you that it has taken much spiritual self-examination to realize this -- and to heal it.

What happens -- at least for me - is, that when I see through the tangle of my own emotional forest, I get clearer views of what was always true, at the very heart of things. And what is true about each of these men is that they are deeply good. They are kind, honest, beautiful men of integrity. I was blessed in each case.

Have I ever told them that. No. At least not the first two. Why? Because I am afraid. Yup. I am afraid that I will be thought ridiculous. I am afraid that they will think, "a little too late." I am afraid that I will be rejected and dismissed. It is all about pride.

I have a bigger fear though. That bigger fear is that one of us will leave this chapter of our eternal lives without my having said what is in my heart. I am not "in love" with either of my earlier loves, but I do love them. I love them for the kindness they showed a fragile, skittish woman-child who tried so hard to seem confident, smart, and whole. I love them for the patience they showed each time I reached the fight-or-flight stage of my anxiety. I love them for believing in me when I didn't believe in myself. I love them for loving themselves enough to move on -- into relationships and marriages that were so much better for them. And I just love them for being the men I love.

I don't expect either of them to read this or to understand how I could love them so much, and not be able to say what is in my heart. I don't understand it either.

When my grandfather was very ill and it was likely that he would pass away in a hospital -- far from where he'd become a man, married my grandmother, and raised their children -- it was my grandmother who he'd divorced decades earlier, that he asked to see. His current wife was by his bedside, but he asked to see my grandmother. She refused. He passed without that reconciliation. That story always broke my heart.

Years late when my grandmother was facing serious memory-related issues I spent time with her in prayer. One day we were sitting in her room, at the care facility where she was living, and I asked her about my grandfather. She was silent for the longest time before she began to weep. She wept the tears of the broken-hearted. I sat quietly by her side.

After some time, I asked her again to tell me about my grandfather and their young marriage. She smiled the smile of a girl, and began to tell me about falling in love, courtship, the early days of becoming a family with the three small children they raised in a lovely neighborhood.

As far as I know, my grandmother did not have any memory-related episodes again after that conversation. She would soon leave the care facility and spend time with all three of her children and their families before her peaceful passing. Her heart was lighter, her laughter was sweeter, her peace was deeper.

I take great comfort in something Paul says in his epistle to the Romans:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us. For I am persuaded,
that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God..."

Love doesn't weaken us. Love empowers us. Love has no pride. It is not afraid of looking ridiculous. It is not afraid of failing. It is not afraid of being rejected. I pray that I can more fully realize this love in myself.

I know that nothing can keep me from loving the people I love -- whether they feel the same about me, or not. Perhaps someday I will have the courage to tell them how much they have meant to me -- even after we were no longer together. If I do, I will tell them how much I love them -- and their new families. I will tell them how grateful I am for their wives, who love them in ways I seemed incapable of loving when I was a younger woman.

Until then, I will pray for their happiness, I will see them through the purest eyes, I will delight in their accomplishments and weep with their sorrows. And mostly, I will be grateful that I have known great men who have helped me grow into this woman who is learning what it means that Love has no pride. Thank you.


offered with Love,

Kate