I think anybody who falls in love is a freak. It's a crazy thing to do. It's kind of like a form of socially acceptable insanity.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be in love.
Over the holidays, I visited my 90 year-old grandfather in Black River Falls Wisconsin. This year was the first year we had the holidays without my grandmother who passed away in February of this year from late-stage Alzheimers. I talked to him a bit just about her over the break.
My grandparents on my moms side are classic small-town Wisconsin people. My grandfather was basically the town general practice doctor (dude literally has delivered thousands of babies), saved many lives. My grandmother was a schoolteacher. Pillars of their community.
They knew eachother since they were little kids. They were high school sweethearts, went to college together at the University of Wisconsin, and got married and had a family. They lived very full and impactful lives.
Things are never perfect though like any relationship, but what I saw in my grandfather I thought was worth writing about. As my grandmother started to get sick, my grandfather became her caregiver which was a flip in roles. He was an old-school doctor and did everything he could to help her, all the way to the end.
Those last few weeks, after years of disease, she was scared and confused. People with late-stage Alzheimers start to lose a lot of sense of themselves and it’s quite scary. Instead of being scared too, my grandfather did everything in his power to do right by her. He held her hand. He would help feed her her favorite foods and get her up and around family at dinner. At night he would pull their hospital beds together so she would feel safe. He worked with the caregivers to make sure she wasn’t in pain. To the very end, she was his partner and he loved her more than anything. When she finally passed, he was there all the way through. It was heartbreaking.
I only hope that someday I can have that kind of character.
When you let someone in, it’s easy to get hurt—sometimes in small ways, sometimes in ways that feel massive. Loving someone is giving them power over you. With any power there’s risk. Even if they don’t mean to, they can hurt you.
What I realized though after watching my grandparents, is that no matter if you live the most beautiful life with someone, we’re always destined to lose them in one way or another, even if you ride it to the very end. Part of choosing to love them is knowing this and doing it anyway.
Falling in love isn’t about avoiding pain, it’s about accepting it is going to happen and going for it anyway. We have a choice on who we love, and by loving, we are signing up for them to eventually hurt us, maybe in a small way maybe in a big one. We do it anyway, because that’s really what love means, doing it despite the pain.
I hope I can find a way to love like my grandfather loved my grandmother. It was one of the most moving things I’ve ever seen, and gives me faith in humanity.