Posted by Susan J on September 25, 2003, at 9:48:11
In reply to Is knowing and loving someone worth......, posted by jay on September 24, 2003, at 17:32:42
Jay,
>>Is knowing and loving someone worth the price of losing them?
<<Jay, I don't know your story, but I can tell you, emphatically, yes, it's worth the extraordinary pain of losing them. At least to me, and I've got to be the most super-sensitive child on the planet. What helps *me* is to look at the *whole* picture, not just *my* feelings, be they wonderful or painful beyond reason.1. When you love someone, you bring joy to *their* life as well as your own.
But it's not just the joy that makes love important. It has a ripple effect. It's the nurturing effect it has on people. Perhaps your love of someone teaches someone else how to love. It's how love helps shore up another person's self-esteem, helps them back on the road to loving themselves. It's how love looks out for another person in rough times. It's how real love for another human being shows *you* how powerful *you* are. It's how love helps bring new kids into the world. It's how loving once teaches you how to love again, and hopefully even better the next time. Loving parents is about loving yourself. Loving kids (to me) is about loving God, humanity, life itself. Loving someone else teaches you to love yourself. It's all positive. Not just for you, but for *everyone* around you. The people you love, the people who see you love, the people who want to learn to love. Love is so much bigger than the joy that *you* feel.
And even when the person you love is gone, either from death or by choice, all the good of that love still exists because it touched so many people, in ways you can't even see or know. I thought my brother had the perfect marriage, wonderful loving spouse who loved their kid. I'm wrong about that, but that's another story. What *is* true, however, is that seeing their good love, even though none of it was directed at me, gave me hope, made me happy that others were happy, made me happy that their child was receiving their love. Their love was a wonderful thing to see, and I had nothing to do with it. Does that make any sense?
And when you lose a person you loved, you grieve. You grieve hard. But if you can, look at the pain as a celebration of how much you loved that person. How much good he/she gave you, and how much you gave to them. How much good others received just by being around loving, caring behavior.
2. On the flip side, when you shut down and refuse to love, you hurt people closest to you. You think you protect yourself, and you do. But other people start hurting. Other people are turned away from you emotionally. It does no good but prevent *possible* pain for you, and it does a world of hurt to the people who care about you.
We are meant to love. We will grieve. But to try and stop those emotions is robbing yourself, and those around you, of your humanity.I wish you the best. I know you are hurting, and I'm sorry. I hope *something* I said helps a little bit.
Susan
poster:Susan J
thread:263015
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/grief/20030903/msgs/263169.html