Love is a Story we Never Tire of Telling…

I read those words on an early morning walk on the first day of March—a walk free of wind and full of intention, as I set off to bring myself back to the land and into my heart. The weather was decidedly spring-like, and I walked my usual neighborhood-to-open-space route, feeling the shift from the sad, sour mood of the night before as I hit the desert ground. As I look skyward, I’m thinking about all the planetary alignments taking place and how I’m invited to realign right alongside. It’s a good walk as I goalset and storyplot, knowing a new chapter of my life is unfolding.

Toward the end, I opened my email on my phone and found Pádraig Ó Tuama’s weekly missive—always an inspiration, his thoughts and a poem to boot—and as I skimmed (I am still walking after all), these words jumped off my little screen into my soul. A perfect reminder as I think about what is ahead this month: Love is a story we never tire of telling. Yes. Don’t you love a sentence that carries so much?

Love is a story we never tire of telling. Whether we know it or not, we are telling the story of love every day in so many ways—showing up for ourselves, our friends and family, and caring for colleagues, our community, and neighbors we know and don’t know. We tell the story of love in our actions and as we protest, pray, or participate; we tell it all the time.

But what really hit me reading those words was another meaning: the idea that Love is the story we never tire of telling. For me, March contains stories I’ve told so many times before—of disease, of awareness and action, of grief and acceptance, of life, and of death. March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, and also the month Brian died, nine years ago.

For years, I have come into this month with body memory first, usually around late January or early February. Why am I sad? Oh, yes, the beginning of the end was right about now. Then March begins, and the stories I tell have a container and a reason for being repeated. The stories of colorectal cancer increasing in young people, of Brian’s late-stage diagnosis, of the impossible thought of what might have happened had he had a colonoscopy (he was 48 when he was diagnosed, not yet screening age). Again and again, I’ll share the stories and encourage colonoscopies. Love is a story we never tire of telling.

I’ll never tire of telling the story of Brian facing his diagnosis and death with so much strength and maybe a tad too much stoicism, but inspiring nonetheless, and heartbreaking. Because his life was a story of love: the way he loved every moment and laughed at most of them; the way he showed up for his family, his many jobs, his wonderful friends, for me, and for the three amazing humans he helped bring into the world and loved beyond reason. And he deserved more. But he lived a life full of love, culminating with an enormous final act—on the heels of being told he had liver failure, he shared how grateful he was for the time he was given; he wouldn’t have changed a thing. I don’t know how he did it. I tell this story a lot, but I tell it to myself more than anyone else. It’s been a driving force of my own journey of acceptance. I am blessed with the life I’ve lived so far, and I’m grateful for all that comes my way, good or bad, because how could I not be? Brian was a great teacher.

But this year, the stories are taking a different shape. I felt it earlier—the familiar triggers, yes, but with a glow after the grief, anticipating new beginnings. This month, a new story joined the fray: a wonderful continuation of Brian made an appearance with the birth of our first grandchild. To be sure, Elijah is the continuation of many stories, many lives, many loves—my daughter Sarah and her husband Sam, of course, and just think of all the individuals stretching as far back as we can imagine who had to find each other for this baby to be. And that Elijah (historically a prophet and a miracle worker) chose March to arrive, and not his February due date, emphasizes his story in my life as a luminous lineage of Brian’s.

I couldn’t be more grateful, more happy, or more excited about all the new stories that will unfold thanks to little Elijah, and I know Brian shares in all of them.

It is two weeks since I started to write, knowing what March would bring—familiar stories of gratitude and grief and new stories of babies and beginnings, all stories of so much love—and you can bet I’ll never tire of telling any of them.

Baby Elijah and Grammie GG

*This line comes from a bittersweet poem, “Dukka” by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, a poem of all the ways we love while enduring war. Please find her work featured in a beautiful episode of Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound on On Being.