Learning about love

This morning when I was walking and praying for my friend, my mind started to wander. Usually I feel bad about this and try to stay focused, but today I didn't quite catch it before it really took off. I was remembering something I felt when my firstborn child was a baby.

As a stay at home new mom, I had a lot of time to think, and my postpartum brain was full of abstract thoughts and feelings. Probably about 99% of these were about my baby. I couldn't believe how much I loved this tiny being I had grown inside of my body. I couldn't believe it was possible to love someone so much. All I wanted was to protect and nurture this child, to give him all the love he needed and more. He was a difficult infant for whom we really had to work to calm down, but I didn't mind. I was so in love with this baby, I would do anything for him, and I didn't want anyone around who didn't love him that much. 

He was just nine months old when I found out that I was pregnant again. For the next nine months I was devastated, thinking there was no way I could love another child as much as I love the one I have. This second child would spend its entire life not being loved as much as the first. 

My heart broke thinking about this, because as a second child myself, I felt the sting of being second loved, second best. In my case, it was something I was TOLD and something I really experienced. I still feel deeply, deeply hurt when I feel unloved and unwanted. It's been the thorn in my side my entire life.

I really thought there was this finite amount of love one could have, and give. I really thought any love I gave to my second child would be love taken away from my first child. 

 

We love putting things in boxes, don't we? We love categorizing, mapping out, cataloging all things, regardless of how unboxable they are. Our brains find comfort in the either/or. We love to quantify even the most abstract of concepts. 

We want to put God into the sorting machine and when we can't make sense of it we just say, we humans don't have the capacity for this knowledge. 

We want to put love into neat boxes. It doesn't always (if ever) work that way, I don't think. 

I started reading "The Four Loves," by C. S. Lewis. I've heard these loves discussed by pastors. Something about it seems really frustrating and laughable to me. All these men philosophizing, mapping out, discussing, sorting, trying to pin down and define LOVE. I don't think it works like that either. 

...

When my second child was born, I found out that somehow, I didn't have to divide my love. The feelings of love, they just multiplied. If we're quantifying things here, I loved twice as much. 

Sure, my attention was often divided. Mostly, I had to keep my first baby from bopping my second baby on the head. But I had so much MORE love than I had before. I didn't have to love my first less. Impossible. I didn't have less love for my second. Impossible. Was it different? Of course. My first child was difficult and required a lot of attention. We had a million doctor visits and evaluations and worries and sleepless nights. He was brilliant and had special needs and still does. My second child was a helper. Her heart is so beautiful, you cannot help but to love her. She's fierce and intense and giving and empathic. She cares SO MUCH. And she is loved so much! When I think of her, I feel an abundance of golden sunshiny love just bursting from my heart. I think, "I love her with my whole self!" 

And when I think of my first, guess what? I think, "I love him with my whole self!" 

And my third child? He lights up my life! He was a bundle of joy as a baby and is so loving and caring today! He has been frustrating and wonderful and, "I love him with my whole self!"

How can this be true?

That's just how love works. 

Thinking about this in the context of marriages now has my wheels turning. Will another love be different? Of course. Will it be less? It will not! Perhaps it will be different in ways that we really need it to be different. Perhaps we will have to keep our first from bopping the second on the head (not literally, of course). 

Perhaps in my case there won't be a second.