Love is All That Remains

Today it's a rainy Friday.  It is a day of remembering for me.  I was talking about how my father was so proper.  Talking about him made me recall his voice.  I could hear him saying my name in the way that only my dad said it.  I could hear his thick accent when he spoke English.  I could hear the refined Colombian accent that said usted, instead of the more familiar tu.  My father and I didn't always have the best relationship.  I remember being at odds with his more conservative thinking in my adolescent years.  But when I needed love, when I needed someone to love me through all of my craziness, my father was there.  I can only remember the good.  The lessons that I didn't want to hear.  I remember the act of pure kindness and the way he joked around.  I remember his generosity and incredible intellectual reasoning.  I think that's what is left when all is said and done, love is all that remains. 

I Peter 4:8

"Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins." 

My pastor preached on this and other verses this Sunday.  I know that I'm taking it out of context but this is what I think of when I think of love covering a multitude of sins.  I think of how love forgives our sins the way that God loves us despite the fact that we are covered, like grime in sin.  I remember my loved ones fondly, not remembering any of the bad, but only the good.   "So now faith, hope, and love abides, these three; but the greatest of these is love." I Corinthians 13:13

I think back farther to my mother.  I remember how she loved to laugh.  I remember that she was kind.  She taught me how to endure pain by smiling, even when she was in intensive care.  I loved the way she would hug me.  I loved how she was cool.  She was beautiful without even trying.  She was not afraid to be who she was.  She was funny.  My mother made people feel special, me being her only child and daughter, she made me feel like I was a princess even before that was a thing.  

Of course, I will talk about Santi.  I know that there were days that he would drive me nuts.  But I don't remember any of that.  It's like a detail in a photo where only the love and the good can be seen.  I remember his hands.  I remember his voice.  I loved his voice and the way he spoke.  I liked the way that he was on my side first.  I loved that he was stubborn and would stick to what he believed in.  There was so many things about Santi that were good.  There were so many things about him that I loved.  I'm so blessed to have these wonderful memories.  They don't haunt me.  They keep me warm.  I look back and remember that I had that.  I had someone wonderful for a while.

I think of that song, "The Way You Look Tonight."  

Some day when I'm awfully low,

And the world is cold. 

I will get a glow just thinking of you,

And the way you look tonight.

I'm living with the glow of love so good and warm that I know it will last me for the rest of my life.  How can I complain?  How can I think of myself anything but the most blessed of women, because God in His goodness has allowed me this love so that I can love others.  I can love kids who need someone to love them the way that I was loved... even if it was just a little while.