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To love, to be loved, to make love. You can't make someone love you. Can't buy me love. Love me, love me not. Love is a many splendor'd thing. But LOVE ... TWUE love ... How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!

A mother's love. Brotherly love. 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. For the love of God! Jesus loves me, this I know. Love, love me do! Love songs. Love potions. Love is a battlefield.

I could do this all day, reciting cliches and pop songs about love, but because love is so central to what it means to be human, I'm certain I would only produce a fractional representation.

I think I read somewhere that the ancient Greeks or Romans had speculated we are capable of a certain number of "types" of loving. For example, there is parent-to-child love, love between friends, romantic love, love between siblings, and so on, each type having it's own descriptor word. I didn't learn all the details, but I remember thinking when I heard this that (1) how ironic it is to attempt to dissect and rationalize the strongest, most irrational aspect of emotional life, and (2) how odd that unlike those ancient scholars, we don't have special words for these different types of love. It could solve a lot unfortunate, confusing problems if one could say "I love you" and never have to follow-up with " ... like a brother" in a shocking, heartbreaking banishment to the "friend zone."

Regardless of the particular flavor, it seems the hurricaine strength of love lifts us, spins us, and transforms our lives. Even under the worst of circumstances, the mere hope of love existing can be the inspiration required to persist and to survive. Without it, even if all physical needs are met, our personalities grow stunted and dark, despairing. It is no wonder that something so essential gets treated like a limited commodity that once given, leaves behind an ever-dwindling supply, as though Love is a pie with a limited number of slices!

The rush and enormity of love can be shocking. Although not a parent myself, I was once flooded by the terrifying strength of parental love. An absolute tsunami of emotions, that instantaneous love when the nurse handed over my friend's baby girl, all of us soaked with sweat and tears from the delivery. Her own mother had not held her yet, and for whatever reason -- maybe because I was the only other person there, maybe it was assumed I was family? -- this brand new life was literally thrust upon me. She was suddenly my responsibility. I realized in milli-micro-seconds that it was up to me, holding her, to ensure her survival ... of course, that only meant I had to NOT drop the baby, and I proudly and successfully sheltered her, eyes open to my eyes, until her mother was ready.

The previous few months, the onset of labor, and journey to hospital was ultimately more than just being a witness. The experiences we'd shared through her pregnancy, labor, and birth, washed over me in waves that left my very soul drenched. In an almost biblical flash, I knew I would kill or die for this child, and that fierce knowledge gave me wings.

Momentarily, that is. The emotion wore off quickly, for various reasons. For one, we were not at all related, and my friend (the infant's mother) perhaps was in all actuality more of an acquaintance than a friend, despite living in my house and working with me almost daily for several months. She moved out and moved on within weeks, and her daughter was adopted by another family. Does that lessen or cheapen what I felt? I don't believe so, not at all. Nor do I believe that choosing adoption was anything but the most unselfish and loving gift that woman could have given to her child.

Truly, love is transformational. We are never the same "after" love, and sometimes that is agonizing. The first few times one is flattened by the "after" state, it feels defining. There is fear that the feeling of love, once lost, will never happen again. There is a physical emptiness, and time loses meaning as day loses light. No matter how final it feels, if you love yourself you can live and learn to deal with loss.

Persevere, and ultimately survival kicks in. Finally. the sun shines again and while never the same as what was lost, love can and does return. It is different, yet still as strong.

Why does this happen? Because love is not a pie. Think of love as the reverse of a black hole. Unlike the infinite crush of a collapsed star, real love does not swallow and consume everything, trapping and erasing it! Instead, it expands, it grows, and it is powerful enough to change the universe, should we ever allow it.

After all, love ain't nothing 'til you give it away.

s