I love you- -what does that really mean?

 

Research indicates that humans are “hard-wired” for love.  Our well being depends on love as it does for food, water and air.

We hear I love . . . all the time, I love you, I love pizza, I love Disney land, I love summer, I love chocolate. But what does I love you really mean? There are four Greek words that help us define love.

The first is storge, which describes the love between a parent and child. This type of love is very different from the love between friends, philia explains this type of love.  Philia is used to describe a warm and close relationship. Agape love happens when on the behalf of the well-being of someone else, rather you like the person or not. However, in the media Eros is the form of love that we see, read about, and hear the most about.  Eros is the erotic love that exists between a man and woman. Eros love is the love when people long to be together. 

Being married for 32 years, and I can truly say that I love him more now then when we were first married.  I think that our love has developed into a higher love.  When we were first married, we truly loved each other, and it was not just eros love.  Matt and I liked each other, we liked spending time with each other, we could talk about anything. As our marriage progressed problems arose as they do in most marriages.  There was not enough money, he was trying to finish his master’s degree, too much homework, not enough time together, and babies came along in the mix of it all.  It would see just as we were getting used to one situation, another different one would come our way.  But we worked together on it.  In May 1996 Matt got extremely sick. He could not figure out what was wrong, this was different from what his normal sickness.  For a few years before he has seemed to always catch whatever was going around, a cold, the flu, a stomach bug, sore throat that always turned into strep.  But this time it was different. After passing out several times at the house, Matt ended up in the emergency room that night.  I remember the doctor saying we need to check his blood there is something wrong.  My mind immediately went to cancer since it runs in his family.  After a few hours they came back with a diagnosis of diabetes. I was stunned, how could someone who is 31 be diabetic? He was too old for juvenile diabetes, but too young to have type 2 diabetes. It has been 25 years since he was diagnosed. Some of the hardest things that we have gone through have been because of his health.  But we have worked through it together, not always agreeably.  At first, I was mad at him, and anyone else I could think to be mad at.  After realizing that was not getting me anywhere, we started working through it together.

Working through something hard together bound Matt and I together. We have learned how to work through hard things together, his health is no longer on top of our list, other problems have come along to take its place. But the amazing thing is that we didn’t give up on each other, we have helped and supported each other through some really hard times.

I love Matt more today than I did 32 years ago.  Thirty-two years ago we thought we knew what happiness was, 32 years ago we thought we new what services was, 32 years ago we thought we knew what hard was, 32 years ago we thought we knew what love was. Three children, one grandchild, and thirty-two years later, we know what love is.