What is Love?

(sorry, I HAD to do it)

     For all we think we know about love, the real fact of the matter is that we really don’t know shit.

Ask 50 people the question “what is love?” and you will get 47 answers.

Sure, there is a textbook definition:

But really, what does all of that tell us?  We have a biblical edict to love one another, but I am have been through my bible time again and have yet to find the words on exactly HOW to do so.
Please note, I am taking nothing from my bible as I find nothing anywhere else specifically telling me this either.

We find ourselves left to learning everything we know about love from those who love/loved us…

My pops:
I don’t know I am willing to call this love.  Sure I know him, but do I?  So little was contributed, so little was available that his mother did most of the things that he should have been doing for us.  To him and to everyone he should have been making moves for, his love was for himself.
Shit, if this lottery ticket in front of me hits it big, his sisters will get his “parents’ share” in lieu of his mother since she is no longer with us.

My mom:
It was a game of makeup.  She is generous of herself, often too much so.  I can’t really say if it is for what she didn’t have or what we didn’t.  We’re all in our late 30s or older now and she will still do whatever she can for us.  It is a kind of selflessness that should be admired.  What I know, though is that as long as I got a dollar, we got a fucking dollar.

My granddaddy:
Silence…  Let the world think you’re doing nothing while inside you are running around doing EVERYTHING.  Bust your ass making everything what it is.  Sure, you may not speak the words, but your outcomes and efforts had damn well better speak to it.  He made sure we spoke like reasonable people when the time required it, but also taught us to throw the hands when that moment called for it.  He taught us to take care of home, regardless of your vices in or outside of it.  He taught us the nuances of behaving like we had some fucking sense when there was shit to lose.  Did I EVER hear this man tell me he loved me?  No, as that was not his modus operandi.  Do I know for sure fact that he did?  As sure as I hear his voice when my conscience intervenes in my actions. Every time I hear his lessons talk me through something I never before expected, I understand HOW he loved more than he could have ever told me when preparing us.

     So really, what is love?  Love is what you make it.  I look over the people I have encountered in my life (parents, grandparents, exes, current, etc…) and I notice more and more every day that I have learned more from what Jessie T Lee Sr. did WITHOUT talking about what love is than I did from anyone who ever said a single thing to me, exceedingly more than some who would have pretended to swear on a stack of bibles that they loved me.  I choose to follow his lead.

Love is action.  Love is proving it.  Love doesn't need to be talked up, recipients know when it has entered the building.

Most importantly…  Love is WHATEVER you make it.