Love

This photo of my lovely daughter and her son years ago is a beautiful example of agape and storge loves .

It’s Spring and love is in the air. Of course, love is always in the air if you know how to catch it.

In ancient Greek society, there were four types of love:

Agape: unconditional love, such as the love of a parent for a child and God for us humans;

Eros: romantic love; you know, the one you thought you couldn’t live without (but eventually you found out you could live without him/her)?;

Philia: Friendship: Ah, friends. They’re the ones who feel more like family sometimes than family. With a true friend, you can completely be yourself and your character defects won’t change the friendship. (Unless, of course, your defects are way off base.);

Storge: Family love/brotherly love: The ones we live with until we fly away from the nest. Family, the favorite sister or brother. The beloved mother or father. Yes, even the distant cousins you’ve only met twice in your life.

In the beginning there was love. In the end there is love. And flowing like a river throughout our lives (if we’re lucky), there is always love. We don’t always recognize love as being there for us. Like the ghostlike character in our minds who was the love of our lives and the one who got away, love is sometimes so fleeting that even a hummingbird can’t catch it.

If we’re really lucky, we’ll love again. And if we’re not lucky in that arena, we might not love again. It comes and goes, is large and small, appears and disappears, leaving us with tears of joy or sobs of despair.

It’s odd to me how so many people think only of Eros when they think of love. One family spat and Storge is gone for a short while or a very long time. One tragedy in our lives and we begin to question the love of God. And should a friend betray us, we hide in our homes’ furthermost corner, hanging our heads and wondering how we could have ever trusted her/him in the first place.

I love the way we use the word “love.” “I love Edy’s Rocky Road ice cream,” you may hear me say. And I do. When I was a kid, one of my friends’ mom’s worked at Edy’s. Then Edy’s went away. Imagine my surprise to find Edy’s ice cream in South Carolina several decades later. I also discovered that Dreyer’s Ice Cream makes both brands, but only sells Edy’s on the East Coast now. I can’t really classify that love as one of the four, unless, of course, I choose unconditional love! PS – If you click on both ice cream sites, you’ll see that they have the same color scheme.

“I love going to the movies.”

“I love fishing.”

“I love reading.”  and on and on.

When you think of love, does one particular person or thing come to mind or is your brain indexing like crazy?

I adore the words from one of John Denver’s last songs, “Perhaps Love: “The memory of love will see you through.”

And it will, my friend. Thank you for stopping by. I hope to see you again soon, and I would love for you to share your memories of love in the comments section of this blog!

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