Last Updated on February 21, 2021 by admin

This post is on behalf of Handunn Blakenship.

True love isn’t as it’s shown in the movies

I think sometimes we get so inundated with ideas of love being how it’s shown in movies that we forget what love sometimes needs to be: It’s doing the hard shit, the ugly shit, setting aside our fears and our squeamishness to care for someone when they can’t care for themselves.

“In sickness and in health” sounds nice, but it’s a reality, and it needs to be. Love isn’t shying away from fragility, and making sure to face it in a way that doesn’t rob the other person of their dignity, or leave them feeling like a burden.

True love is real

Love is washing someone’s hair with rainwater you collected because the tap water is so hard it makes her hair fall out, and she’s too tried to raise her arms.   Love is bathing them because they can’t bathe themselves, and being patient as they grieve the loss of their independence. Love is wanted to be there for them even in the last moments because you can’t imagine leaving them to face the end alone, no matter how hard it will be for you when you realize the rise and fall of their chest has stopped and the warmth begins to edd from their flesh.

Never forget that, friends.

Love is bittersweet, and it hurts like a mother, but it’s worth every second when you mean it with every breath.

This post is brought to you by the image of an elderly couple holding hands across the rails of their hospital beds. She dies the next day, and he followed her into the dark three days later. Now, if you excuse me, I need a tissue.