A mother of one holds her little child close and wonders how she could possibly love another child as much as she loves this one.  Years later, she is surrounded by several children, all of whom she loves dearly.  Finally, she realizes that love is not a limited commodity to be hoarded and rationed in fear of depletion, but like mother’s milk is replenished in the giving. 

When I remarried after my husband died, I was unsure how to respond to comments by mutual friends who, though they were happy for me, wanted to make sure my new husband would not supplant my deceased husband in my affections.  Perhaps at the root of those comments was an unspoken fear.  “I could die and my husband might remarry.” 

Jokes about a homely or older second wife good at housework surfaced masking the underlying concern.  “I could die and my husband might come to love someone else, forgetting me in the process.”    

Nobody likes to think of that possibility, of course, and there was an implication that I should hold back somehow and make sure that he knew he was second string.  One friend commented that Paul would always be “the love of your life.”  Being married to a widower, I worried at first that his happiest years were behind him, and that perhaps I was destined to be his step-wife.  Sometimes moments of insecurity arise, but those have more to do with my perceptions than with reality. 

Over the years we have both discovered that we can love each other fully and presently without taking anything away from our previous partners.  Our love for each other’s children has grown, and our children have grown to love each other, and we are now grandparents.  I don’t think Thom’s first wife is waiting on the other side to blast him for signing cards to me “all my love.”  We can give “all our love” because there will always be more to give.

In his book SeinLanguage, Jerry Seinfeld recalled how his mother always told him not to eat candy before dinner because he would spoil his appetite.  But as a grownup, he realized that you can’t run out of appetites, that there will always be another appetite coming along eventually.  Not only do we not run out of our capacity to love, but our need to be loved is also a constant.

In the History of Herodotus, a system is described where women in ancient Babylon were auctioned off in marriage.  The most beautiful women were offered for sale first, with wealthy men bidding against one another for the most desirable mates.  Then some of the money from selling the beautiful women was used to provide a dowry for the least desirable women and they would be delivered to the man most willing to take the least money for an unattractive or crippled bride. 

Although my husband suggested that this might have been a very efficient system at the time, I have to wonder how unloved and uncherished a woman would feel knowing that her husband had to be paid to take her in marriage.  “I’m an eight-cow woman” takes on a new significance if the husband was paid the eight cows to take her.  Every spouse, even subsequent ones, deserves to be loved fully and faithfully. 

Enough for Everyone

I had dinner with my son tonight, and he mentioned that he is going to tell prospective dates that three out of four of his grandmothers think he is a wonderful guy and the fourth one can’t be reached for comment.  I thought about how we always seem to have room for one more grandma, adopted or otherwise.  (After all, we are generally willing to welcome someone into our lives who will bake cookies for us, brag about us, and hang our artwork on the refrigerator.)  Life changes have brought Scott many grandmothers.  Although I was saddened at the additional loss of my first husband’s mother just a year after her son had died, my new mother-in-law took my son into her heart from day one.  It is likely she wrote more letters to him on his mission than I did. 

One of the reasons for that is that she experienced a withholding of love by her husband’s mother for her children, whom she didn’t consider her “real” grandchildren.  Imagine the hurt of a young mother told at a family gathering that the family picture would not include the adopted children. 

Ironically, in her later years the children that grandmother shunned were the ones who were there at the end of her life taking care of her.  I like to think she had a chance to rethink her actions before she passed away and embraced the children who had no blood ties to her but formed ties to her heart. 

Our Savior would have us believe there is even enough love for our enemies and for those who are unkind to us. 

But I say unto you which hear, love your enemies,
do good to them which hate you.  (Luke 6:27)

Contribute to Global Warming

Opportunities abound daily to be warm and caring.  It is a habit we should all cultivate.  It is easy to get into the habit of not caring about the impression we make on certain people we feel don’t count — the bank teller, the receptionist at the office, the disembodied voice at the McDonald’s ordering machine.  Infants imagine that the people who come and go in their universe exist merely to meet their needs.  Hopefully we don’t have that same infantile view of the world.

Our interactions with our family can become so routine that we sometimes forget to be loving and kind, extending more courtesy to others than to those we profess to love most. 

One thing I have tried to do better is to give more substantive hugs.  Have you ever gotten that perfunctory half-hearted one-armed awkward hug from someone that left you feeling less loved than if there had been no contact at all?  Here is something we all can do when hugging is a welcomed and appropriate response.  Go for the three-second two-arm hug.  To get in the habit, count it out as you hug.  “One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three.”  Once you’ve got the timing down, replace the counting with an unspoken affirmation and you increase the chances that the love will be felt by both parties. 

“You are such a wonderful mother-in-law.  I love you so much for all you do for all of us.”

“You seem down.  I want you to know that you are loved and appreciated.”

“I love being around you.  I hope it won’t be too long before I see you again.”

Tick Tock, the Game is Locked

Wanting to be loved and wanting to feel that we belong are feelings we all have.  When I was growing up, sometimes a group of children would decide, for a variety of reasons, that they weren’t going to let anyone else join their current activity.  They would join hands with pinky fingers and chant:

Tick tock, the game is locked, and nobody else can play.
If you do, we’ll take your shoe and keep it for a year or two.

Then there was the “best friend” game.  I had a best friend.  Her name was Cheryl, and she lived next door.  Sometimes when Cheryl would get mad at me, she would threaten to go play with Pam and would inform me that Pam was now her best friend.  When I was mad at Cheryl, I would go down the street and play with Vondra, who would then be my new best friend until Cheryl and I patched things up.  It was a complicated system, but we made it work.  I don’t know who Pam and Vondra played with when Cheryl and I were getting along.  We thought they were always just there, on friendship standby.  Nobody told me I could have more than one good friend at a time.

Another thing I wish I had realized when I was growing up is that a MIA Maid could be friends with a Beehive.  We drew the lines and were friends with kids in our own age group, our grade at school, our class at church. 

After an accidental meeting as adults, I became good friends with a woman who grew up in my ward but was a year younger than I was.  It is a shame that we didn’t realize the potential for a friendship we denied because of the artificial boundaries we constructed. 

Likewise, we had our weekly Mutual activities combined with another ward, but we 3rd ward young women made sure only to maintain close friendships with the girls in our own ward.  Why would we want to be friends with people from the 4th ward?  That was two streets over.  A friendship like that could never work.

Adults are kinder.  They don’t say it out loud, but sometimes you can still get the distinct impression from a group of co-workers or a close-knit group in a new ward that the “game is locked” or that someone feels you may be stealing their “best friend.”  Like the Berlin wall, those barriers need to come down.

A Tale of Two Sisters

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.  (John 13:35)

Examine your pool of close friends.  Are they all roughly the same age?  Do they all belong to the Church?  Do they all come from similar economic backgrounds?  Do they all golf?  Maybe it is time to diversify.

Many years ago, my youngest brother went down the street to console an older woman in our ward who had just lost her husband.  The Relief Society president was manning the fort and turned him away, not aware of the friendship between this twelve-year-old boy and his fifty-ish neighbor.  A few minutes later the Relief Society president knocked on our door.  Sheepishly she said, “Betty sent me down to get Mike.”       

Shortly after moving to Hawaii we received an invitation to the first birthday party for the son of a member of our stake presidency.  I showed it to my husband, flattered that we had been invited.  He smiled, deciding to let me find out for myself that in Hawaii a first birthday party is a big bash and that the entire ward and stake was likely to be invited.  “They must want to be our friends,” I said. 

It was a good feeling to be included, to feel wanted, even though I discovered that it wasn’t the intimate family gathering I had imagined.  In true Hawaiian style, there was enough food to go around.

There was enough love, too.