How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

When Tom and I were young and in love, we used to recite Elizabeth Barrett Browning's (1806-1861) sonnet to each other. We both had it memorized. We were, like I said, young and in love, and somehow it seemed right.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
—number Forty-Three

It is Valentine's Day. I want to write about love. I love many people, and think I know something about it.

First of all, the poem:
"I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace."

Huh? I get the "depth and breadth and height part." but from "when" on, I'm not so sure what that sentence means.

I was an English teacher before I became Nathan's nanny, and I've taught the poem. I guess I should be able to explain each line. No one ever asked me what the line meant, so I just glided over it and went on. High school kids love to talk about love. So over the years I developed some ideas about what true love is.

First of all, love is definitely NOT "never having to say you're sorry." That line is from the movie "Love Story." I hated the movie, because the young heroine finds out she is dying, and then she dies. No happily ever after in that movie.

But, actually, there is not a lot of happily ever after in real life. Not that every love story ends with someone dying young. However, that head-over-heels feeling that we associate with falling in love doesn't last. It gets replaced with the mundane, everyday tedium of jobs and laundry and children, not enough sleep or arguments about money. It morphs into feeling slighted or taken for granted, cheating, divorce. Think about it. Anything you can fall into, you can usually climb out of.

So does romantic love ever last? Sure it does, but only if both people are willing to work at the relationship. Tom and I have been married for 40 years. Are we still head-over-heels in love. NO! Do we love each other? YES. Do we drive each other crazy? Often. But we stick with it, and we talk about what drives us crazy, and we keep working at the relationship. To me, it seems that romantic love survives only when both people make a decision to keep working at making the relationship last.

I used to tell the kids I taught that the problem is that we don't have enough English words to use when we talk about love. We use "love" to mean many different things.

We love our parents; we love ice cream; we love the Cubs or the Sox; we love walking on a beach. Does the word "love" mean the same thing in each of those phrases? Of course not.

Are there other words in English that mean to love? adore, idolize? (Usually used in reference to God. When people adore each other, there is an implication of the emotions being extreme or over the top.) cherish? It means to treat with affection and tenderness, to keep fondly in mind. Hmmm. Not a bad definition, but the word itself is obscure and not used much.

So when we say we love someone, what do we mean? 1) to have a deep, tender feeling of affection for someone 2) to have an intense emotional attachment to. This, I think, is romantic love.

In my experience, romantic love is often temporary because people change and stuff happens. But you know what. I never knew what the word love really meant until I had my kids.

I love my kids in ways that are hard to explain. They can frustrate and disappoint me, but that would never make me stop loving them. I love them with a fierceness that is scary sometimes, because it is so strong. I would do anything for them. I wish I could protect them from pain and fear and disappointment. I wish I could keep them healthy and safe and happy all the time. But of course, I cannot do anything except wish for those things.

I guess now the difference between falling in love with someone and loving our kids is based on the fact that the first is a mutual experience shared with another adult. With our children, who come to us as helplessly, totally dependent babies, it is very different. For me, it was as if the birth of each child was accompanied by a corresponding birth of this huge, encompassing love that arrived when the child arrived. I didn't have to take it from somewhere - it just spontaneously grew in my heart.

In fact, when Ben was three and I was expecting Becca, I loved him so intensely that I was afraid that the new baby would somehow be short changed. I feared that I didn't have any love left over for a new baby. But she arrived, and from the first minute I held her, I loved her as intensely and completely as I loved him, and loving her didn't affect my loving him at all. They each had their own endless supply that originated somewhere in the bottom of my soul. As people, even as baby people, they were different, and I loved them differently because I loved their uniqueness, but I loved them both completely. Then Seth came along, and it was the same with him. Maybe my capacity to love grew. I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that I love all three of them with my whole heart, and loving each of them in no way diminishes my loving the other two.

Loving them has nothing to do with loving Tom either. Their births increased my love for him somehow, even though I had loved him completely before any of them were born. I know that is true, even though I know it sounds contradictory. It's the miracle of parenting, I guess.

And now there is Nathan. I knew I would love any child that Ben and Jen had, but I didn't know I would love him THIS much! I love him every bit as much as I loved my own kids, but differently somehow. He is not my responsibility the same way they were. Somehow I feel more free to just admire and enjoy him. Grandparent love is different than parental love.

I've written all that, but the words are not adequate.

"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others." (Anne-Sophie Swetchine ) Maybe that's what I'm trying to say...