When a Man Loves a Woman

About two years ago I was on a train going from Barcelona to Asturias, Spain. Looking back now seems surreal even though it was really not that long ago. I was traveling alone as usual. A meaningful conversation was struck with a man who sat close by. We both enjoyed each other’s company that passed the time until Pamplona where he had made his stop to get off.

I always delight in those deeper connections that seem to be found more often through men who happen to find something interesting about me. It was a reflective time in my life where I had started writing. I was desiring a deeper understanding of myself by learning more about my family in Spain and more about that history on my father’s side. The experience was also helping me with the finishing touches on my book “We Are One.”

Something in our conversation on the train that day still resonates with me. He explained that he had been visiting his parents in Barcelona for the weekend who are now seniors up in their years. He smiled as he told me an interesting fact that he had suddenly realized. Now as seniors, his parents have switched roles, noticing that what his mother used to do is now what his father does and vice versa. They have basically become one in the other.

His revelation really stuck with me as I realized this idea was a big part of everything that I was writing and still continue to write about. Love ends up becoming the other as one learns to love the other. It is how we grow into knowing a deeper version of ourselves.

I Am You and You are Me

Last year I reached a milestone and hit midlife. I have been single all my life. When I was 25 years old, I said to God that I would live for Him. At that time, I had no desire to live, so I had to make living about something. I had no idea who God was and I had no idea how hard it would be to try to understand Him either. Making God my purpose has been challenging but also rewarding. I have found contentment in learning that God is love who helped me to learn how to love, which helped me to find myself.

I realize that to love is my purpose. I now see that to love is everyone’s true purpose.

The deepest and most intimate love relationship is between a man and a woman. God said it is not good for man to be alone, so He made him a helper. That is what our purpose is. To help one another through this journey called life.

Some of us are very fortunate to have found the love like the love that my friend’s parents have found. When love is achieved you become one in each other and are complete, you have become whole and are now one.

I believe the most successful have achieved this kind of love.

I’ve just finished watching Titanic, again. The movies portray this love that happens instantaneously. We, the viewer, fall in love with the seemingly magical, selfless love that two lovers portray as a nice, fantastical afterthought, but it is there because we really want to believe in it.

God is Romantic

The idea of true-love is true. I may not have experienced it with a man but I have witnessed it. I have heard about it too. Like my friend’s parents, as a nurse, I have seen it. For sure it is rare, but I have witnessed this beautiful love. The husband is holding his dying wife’s hand. The look of lost in his eyes as he understands it is almost time to say good-bye… but it’s not a forever good-bye, it will only be for a moment.

I am a romantic too. I may not have a physical husband, but I have a spiritual one. As much as the world would like to tell me that this love does not exist, except for in the movies, I am not allowing it to convince me. I believe in love and I will never stop believing in it. The love of a man and a woman is true because some of us have experienced it.

Love is found through all opposition. In darkness there is light, in bad there is good, and in physical there is spiritual. Through the man and the woman and through all of us as Jews and non-Jews this opposition can be made complete. — In truth, we are all here to complement the other through this deep divine love.

Some of us have found love and that love is now in the light. When others see it, it helps us to keep believing in it, to keep wanting more of it. Love is the only thing that is true. Love is the only thing that matters.

Love is patient and it is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 
~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-7