love

I love looking back on memories (both recent and long past) and finding love.

I was born into a family that loved and loved and got mad and forgave.  It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I realized that most families were not as easy as mine.  I was taught that love is a gift...and I have been given it more than anyone I know.  I love my mom and dad for giving me this start.  For modeling this love for me...

I love my husband, my beautiful man who is the most incredible boy...the strongest man the most tender warrior I have ever met.  I love watching him sleep and wondering why God would grant me such happiness.  Why did I get him?  Why do I deserve to be the one who's happily married; deeply loved?

I love Vince.  My complicated, beautiful green eyed son who thinks in the depths of the ocean and makes me scared to dive into the beauty of the dark.  I love him for who he is and for his gorgeous fear and daring to plunge into it.... I love his mind and I love his hopes.

I love Alicia.  She scares me with her beauty.  She is wild and brilliant and filled with joy and reckless happiness.  A wild mustang with a white mane running in the snow.  I love her for her high volume love and her tender side that only a few can see.... 

I love the kids I inherited through Mario.

I love David, the easy, groovy, salty man with the laugh and drive so like his dad's.  I love him for loving his girls, loving his wife.  I love him for his oodles of forgiveness he has lavished on me over the years.  I love him for the joy and the laughter and the books and the music... I love his brain and I love his heart.

I love Joe - my blonde and beautiful step son who treaded carefully and stomped at the same time.  I love how his DNA is so close to his father's and his promise is so close to his.  I love his peaceful cool; the nightmarish dillemmas that live so deeply inside of him.

I love my granddaughters and they actually love me back.  Their love and beauty and open abandon to live life each moment makes me happy to be alive mself.  I love their wonder in every moment- their selfish desire to be tended and their gorgeous curiosity.  I can hear the wheels turning as they sit next to me.  I am humbled by their love and joy over me....

On a normal day I can sit and think about all of the love in my life and cry with gratitude.  Today was one of those days, as I look back on all of the pictures of our vacation.  It's almost over and I have so many memories to be grateful for.

Today I am weepy grateful for all of this... all of this love.