The love that never dies

It doesn’t appear that my mom will make her 101st birthday on May 8th. She’s receiving hospice care in her home in Monmouth, Oregon, and I’m here with my older sister, Marcia.

I came across an old black-and-white photo of the three of us from around 65 years ago, and I placed it alongside one I took last December. 

It reminded me how love comes full circle. 

It may seem that Marcia and I are caring for Mom (truthfully, my sister does most of the work, and our other two sisters will arrive soon), but every time Mom’s eyes meet ours, or she smiles, or she grasps one of our hands, she continues to care for us.

In that old photo, I wasn’t even aware that Mom was holding me, but I’m so aware that she is holding me now. 

There’s never anyone in your life who loves you as unconditionally as your mother does. Across a lifetime, that love changes and grows as it overcomes each challenge and continues to affirm that your life has significance and value, no matter how many struggles you endure or defeats you suffer.

All of this says to me that love is eternal and that even when it seems to lose, as in aging and death, it eventually wins, because love always comes back in some new form, stronger than before, evolving and growing into all God intends it to be.

Forever.

My gaze lands on the old photo and then on the newer one. I pause for a moment and then repeat the process in reverse, slower now, considering one picture and then the other, and then both. 

The photos keep growing blurrier, and I lose track of time. 

Is this 2022? 

Or 1957? 

Is this today? 

Or yesterday? 

Or forever? 

Mysteriously, love is always here and now, but it’s also what it once was, as well as what it has yet to become.

I need to remember this.

It means that, someday, maybe on earth, but surely in heaven, when I think back to this time, sorrow will be another word for joy.