(I dedicate this post to a beautiful woman who has endeared herself to me like a dear sister. I call her Sweetness… When my days were dreary, she always managed to make me smile through constant messages of ‘seize the day,’ ‘cheerios,’ ‘mwahugwinkies,’ ‘spread the love’ and many more.
Today, I had the rare chance to cheer up my Sweetness by spending time with her on the phone for over an hour … But that wasn’t enough for me… Thus, this special ‘work of heart’ … )
One of my favorite songs is Perhaps Love by John Denver. I like the word “perhaps” because it speaks volumes of how uniquely we understand and experience love.
Perhaps love is like a resting place
A shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort
It is there to keep you warm
For those of us who have experienced true love, the very thought of that person makes us smile. Every day is valentine. Every flower is beautiful. Every sigh is like a song. Wherever we look, something is always there to remind us of how beautiful life and living is because our heart is just bursting with joy.
And in those times of trouble
When you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home
Yet in all its splendor, love is not always a shelter; it can also be the storm. It can wound hearts, spoil beautiful beginnings and even put out the sun for days. And in these times, when we feel most alone and our hearts seem tired of beating, memories of love do bring us home to our beautiful self again. It may take some time but soon, dawn will break and we can turn our face towards the sun again. When this happens, we will know for certain that God indeed never wastes a hurt.
Perhaps love is like a window
Perhaps an open door
It invites you to come closer
It wants to show you more
And even if you lose yourself
and don’t know what to do
The memory of love will see you through
If we look at love as a window or an open door, it speaks of freedom to come in and stay or to leave and never look back. It speaks of loving as a choice. We don’t have to love; no one forces us to. We CHOOSE to love. And the moment the choice is made, we become a servant of that choice. We pay the price and deal with the consequences.
Oh love to some is like a cloud
To some as strong as steel
For some a way of living
For some a way to feel
And some say love is holding on
And some say letting go
And some say love is everything
Some say they don’t know
May love for us be as strong as steel and a way of living even if someday, we might need to let go despite our desire to hold on. Saying goodbye to wonderful memories, to people we love to be with until our last breath, to arms that feel like home to us, really requires a tremendous amount of strength and courage. Sometimes, the greatest expression of our love is when we set free that which we want to embrace forever. We may be left grieving for dreams that could no longer come true; but, such is love. There are no guarantees, only hopes.
Perhaps love is like the ocean
Full of conflict, full of pain
Like a fire when it’s cold outside
A thunder when it rains
Oscar Wilde said, “Who, being loved, is poor?” Don’t we feel like we can conquer all – the ocean of conflict and pain, the thunder and the cold – when we are loved? The measure of our love is the measure of our sacrifice. Even if we have nothing, for as long as we have love, we really do have every thing.
If I should live forever
And all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you
The language of love is spoken with a look, a touch, a sigh, a kiss and sometimes a word. And we are truly blessed if we have someone with whom we love creating and sharing these memories.
My dear Sweetness (and you too, dear reader), I wish you love and the strength to choose to love despite the absence of “love warranties.” Love can be a dawn or a dusk but both can be beautiful.
In the end, may Love’s memories be of YOU.
CRIS LORENZANA 
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