You would think by now that I would know and accept how many lessons the Toad is destined to teach me but somehow it is only in the quiet moments reflecting back on our interactions and conversations that I am struck by the wisdom he shares with me. In honour of Valentine’s Day, I want to share five recent lessons about love that the Toad has taught me.
1. Love carries across long distances
Most of our family and many of our friends live far away from us. We stay connected using technology such as Facebook and FaceTime and Skype and What’s App etc. but despite many months (or longer) between actual physical visits the Toad‘s intensity of love never ever waivers. When he talks about our family and friends who he only sees occasionally it is with such excitement and exuberance you would never know they are not part of his daily life
2. Love carries seamlessly across time
Toad’s class has been doing a project about family and when your family immigrated to Canada. On my side of the family Toad is the 7th generation Canadian. As Toad has learned the names of each generation before him, and where they came from he now speaks of them with love and pride. It may be because of his “old soul” nature but he has forged several very strong bonds with friends and family members that are in their 80’s and older. As active as he is, the Toad has connections with these elders in a very different way and really loves the feeling he has when in their company. It is like he knows how precious time is with them and how many gifts they have to give.
3. Love grows when you give it away
I asked the Toad who he was going to give his heart to on Valentine’s Day. He responded without hesitation – he was giving it to his Grandma – his guardian angel who he lost when he was just 5. He then listed about a dozen other people he was also going to give his heart to. He stopped and said to me, “Momma, what if I don’t have enough pieces of my heart to give to everyone I want to?!” I asked him if he ever felt like he could not love someone new because he already loved too many others and he said, “No never Momma – love grows the more you give it away!”
4. Love is a choice
With family so far away we have developed a “family of choice” around us. The Toad makes no distinction in how he loves our blood relatives from our family of choice because there is no need to. At the Yellow Castle the refrain “you love who you love” or “you love who your heart chooses” is heard often. This was also the Toad’s response when he was very young and one of his young friends as about a gay couple they saw on TV. Without hesitation and without a thought of judgment he responded: “you love who your heart chooses.”
5. You don’t have to wait to love
My Toad loves quickly. I am not sure if it will always be that way but for his whole life, he has fallen in love with new friends, new pets, new stuffies, and new family in a heartbeat. When he loves someone he is almost unable to remember a time before he loved them. My goal is to love like that. I think the world needs to love like that.