True love looks like deciding together not to bother with cards for Valentine’s Day, since we always forget anyway.
True love looks like arguing over college funding, ten years in advance.
True love looks like straightening the living room before piano students arrive.
True love looks like crying in each other’s arms at the words “chromosomal abnormality.”
True love looks like calling down your spouse when they are out of line.
True love looks like taking a deep breath and redirecting when your spouse calls you down for being out of line.
True love looks like fifteen years of NFP charts and the medical/lifestyle work that made them settle down into a normal, healthy pattern.
True love looks like taking bath duty. Or lawn-mowing duty. Or making-lunches duty.
True love looks like 5:30 a.m. exercise calls to stay fit and healthy enough to enjoy each other for years to come.
True love looks like lots and lots of Tiger Balm rubbed into troubled muscles.
True love looks like using your knees to give your wife a backrub when your hands have given out.
True love looks like no difference between “mine” and “ours.”
True love looks like choosing not to keep score of who’s done what and whose turn it is.
True love is continuing to look for a way to grow spiritually together, even when it’s not easy to find time or resources that work.
True love looks like turning off the TV and computer to talk.
True love looks like setting aside my to-do list because what you need done is more important right now.
True love looks like growth.
True love looks like self-emptying.
True love has no idea on Day One what it’s going to look like on Day 5475, let alone Day 18,250.
True love identifies itself by adapting, and changing, and deepening over time. By becoming less and less about “me,” and more and more about “you” and “us.”
True love is not very sexy to look at…but it gives life.
What does true love look like for you?
Kathleen M. Basi 