The Gift Of Love

My son and his wife have gone away for a week and I am babysitting their cat.

Now my son LOVES this cat; and this cat, who was once the runt of the litter, has responded to this love by growing huge. Now where I really ENJOY this cat, I don't love him the way my son does; and, of course, the cat feels the difference.

Thursday was day 5 and I could tell that the cat was really lonesome for his people and for his known way of life. He doesn't mind coming here for two or three days - rather enjoys the change for that long - but he has had enough - probably beginning to feel Abandoned.

All day Friday the cat, normally a very loving animal, kept biting my hand every chance he got. Although I could not allow him to get away with this behavior, I could EMPATHIZE with him.

I have been doing the same thing for the last six years, since my second husband died. I LOVED that man unconditionally. He was just so easy to love. He was gentleness personified - the first gentleness I had ever experienced in my life.

He had this way of encouraging me to be all I could be without ever using words - words were never his strong point - I always thought things through and chose my words carefully if I had to talk to him about something serious.

But the greatest gift of all that he had was the ability to enjoy himself fully, in the moment, no matter where he was or who he was with. It did not matter if he would rather be someplace else. It did not matter if he would rather be doing something else, or with somebody else. He just put all of himself into enjoying what he was doing and the people he was with; wherever he was.

And I LOVED that about him.

Joseph Campbell said that when we open to loving a person, whether that person is a spouse, a friend, or a child, we open our hearts to loving God. And when we let somebody love us, we're opening our hearts to God's love.

We are changed by love - whether we are doing the loving or allowing ourselves to be loved. I don't know - but it seems to take a lot of courage to allow yourself to be loved - I wonder if it makes us feel too vulnerable(?)