love

we were discussing adoption fees on a rescue forum and love came up. so what is it? in my human terms i know only 2 kinds of real lasting love....the instant and overwhelming and enduring feeling i felt the second that i knew there was a child growing inside of me and the same forever, no matter what, feeling i get when each animal comes into my care.

total and complete. not dependent on anything except their actual being.
i can't honestly say that i love my kids more today then i did at the moment of their birth...i would give my life for them.

so does love grow? i suppose it does or sometimes it is just born full and complete in an instant...why? i think because a total, forever, no holding back, no matter what, committment is made.

but....love is not an airy, fairy "feeling" with no substance to back it up. it is a demonstrated series of committed actions that never, ever ends. so if someone dumps their dog here after 15 years because they are downsizing and moving into an apartment...i honestly wonder if they ever really loved that dog because if they did, why is he here?

my husband and i split up after 29 years of marriage (we could have split after year two but we were busy raising our family)...we are friends, we care about each other but in retrospect, i don't think we ever truly were "in" love....do i love him? sure i do (to a certain degree), we were together for almost 30 years but i don't want to live with him and i doubt he wants to live with me either.

so i guess there are different kinds of love...the forever, whatever kind like i feel for the animals and i feel for my kids and the kind i feel for my ex, my friends, my extended family, which is not quite so all encompassing.

i think maybe love comes in varying degrees...i used to think it was all or nothing but maybe there is something in the middle of this thing.