A Love Like That

Even
After all this time
The sun never says to the earth
“You owe me”
Look what happens 
With a love like that
It lights the whole sky
~Hafiz

When I’m at my mountain cabin, I often sit by the creek. I just watch. And listen. And breathe. Everything is so beautiful. Water dances along. Trees stand impossibly tall while the tiniest moss flowers dot red on boulders. Bugs flit in and out of shadows. Birds light near then startle warnings of the stranger sitting still.

All of this beauty, just there. So overwhelmingly generous. It makes my brain explode and my heart burst open. Until there is nothing left of me but tears of humble gratitude.

How could I ever have a mean or selfish thought in the face of a love like that?

While I was up at the cabin recently enjoying my solitude, my son had a crisis. His TV broke. If you know my son, you know that he would rather have his hand cut off than lose his TV. His autism does not roll with such things. I have no phone at the cabin, so he went to plan B and called his sister. Although she had a child to get to bed and work the next morning, she did not hesitate. With her son tucked in and her husband at home, she spent several hours getting a new TV hooked up for her brother. She made it back home after midnight and was up several hours later to start her busy day.

When I found out what had happened, I thanked her. “You don’t need to thank me.” I said I owed her one. “You don’t owe me anything. He’s my brother. I was happy to help him.”

A love like that. It lights the whole sky.