Lessons in Love

The other day I was reflecting on lessons I had learned from the women in my life. From my Granny to my Mother and all the sisters, daughters, and friends in between.

I was thinking about these lessons because I was trying to target what made these people special to me. I had not come up with a satisfactory answer until I read Kia’s post about home and decided to write a substantive post, instead of another post about how little writing I’ve been doing. Thanks, Kia!

This post is about why my Granny was so important to me that I want to write about her so that she is not forgotten by the annals of history.

My Granny taught me how to love. She taught me to love family selflessly and unconditionally, but not to love a man stupidly.

My Granny would spot the most vulnerable among us and love that person so hard -- it looked like she was willing the person to see how special he was and that he was deserving of the love and respect someone may have denied him or he was denying himself.

I saw my Granny take in family members, both male and female, when it looked like the world, including the family, had turned its back on them. These people didn’t always treat her with the respect she deserved, but she treated them with the respect she deserved. Sometimes I thought she was enabling bad behavior, but I came to realize that she was doing the only thing she could -- loving someone else to a fault even when rational thought dictated otherwise. I never saw her hurt or in pain by loving someone who didn’t treat her the way they should -- I only saw her in pain when her loving someone didn’t make them love themselves.

It's not for this post, but my Granny had some interesting advice on men. Maybe I'll share that one day. But for now, it's enough to say that she was not so generous with her love when it came to a potential mate.

In short, I learned how to love from my Granny -- I haven’t quite made it to her level of generosity and I am not sure I aspire to be as selfless as my Granny -- but I admire her and respect the way she lived her life -- it was filled with so much love.