Lessons from Uncle Davey

I called him Uncle Davey. He was my mom's aunt's husband. Davey was gregarious, full of joy and laughter, with a booming, cheerful and melodic voice that you loved to hear. From my early times as a kid he would call me "lover boy". I don't know why exactly, but I didn't mind it. Because from my early days as a youth and then a young adult, I wanted to fall in love, be in love, and be loved by a woman. I wanted to give myself completely to the love of a beautiful woman. 

Here I am, decades later, and Uncle Davey's words ring in my ear. For I have found love, and it is love shared with a beautiful woman - beautiful in soul, and in appearance. 

So, how do I define love? To me, there are two types of love - in the romantic/relationship sense. The first is romantic love, full of passion, affection, intimacy, desire - this is what I call falling in or being in love. It's a feeling. It can be fleeting. It can come and go. 

And I must confess that over the decades, what I wanted most was this feeling of love. I wanted the romantic dinners, walks on the beach at sunset, holding hands, cuddling in front of a fire. And because of that focus - that "goal" - my dating life sucked. I put too much pressure on myself. And the girls and women I went out with knew that I had an "agenda": I must've had the word "DESPERATE" tattooed on my forehead.

That love - well, it's great for feelings and emotions. But it doesn't have the legs under it to keep it going.

The second love is the kind of love that says "You are important to me. Your needs are more important than mine. I will do whatever I need to to make you happy, content and fulfilled." That love is tougher, and not exclusive to couples be they married or just dating. That love bonds friends together. That love keeps families as one. That love is what you see when that 70-something couple at church still holds hands. I didn't really know about this type of love until I saw it first-hand in my parents. After my dad retired, and while I was still living at home with my parents, I saw this type of love manifested regularly in small deeds of service, kindness one for the other, and in the simple fact that they did whatever the other needed without question or hesitation. That taught me what love was. 

And as I grew into adulthood, that was the love I realized I wanted. Oh, sure, I still love romance, and my wife will tell you I'm a great slow-dancer. 

But when my wife and I were dating, we realized that we loved each other before we fell "in love". We both liked and respected each other, and we both wanted the other to be happy, content and fulfilled. The day I knew that I loved Brenda - which DID happen before I fell in love with her - was a day that the light came on, and I knew that I loved her. We both seek out the other's needs before our own. We both listen to each other. Our calls (since we're still not together yet as I write this - my house is in escrow) start with what our day was like. We listen. We then discuss things. And yes, we confess in our calls of our love, our desire to be with the other - a wonderful mix of love and romance 

And I wish my parents were around to see us together. And I sure wish Uncle Davey was around to come up to me and in that wonderful, melodic voice, call me "lover boy".