Funny thing about love

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

Throughout my life, I have sent "all of my love" to different folks at different times.

Our children are scattered far and wide, and just before I hang up the phone, I often find myself saying "All my love. We'll talk soon!" It's never occurred to me that having given all my love away, that my supply might have been depleted and was in need of somehow being replenished.

It simply never crossed my mind, that love could be anything but boundless, until just the other day. Only a few minutes apart, I sent "all of my love" to two different loved ones. With the second sending, I began to ponder.

It occurred to me that they both lived fairly close to each other, and that both of my love sendings were headed in just about in the same direction. Perhaps my love could branch off as it encircled the one, and then head over to encircle and the other. I wondered, though, if "all" my love had truly been left with the first, so that it needed to circle back, gather some up, refill back to complete volume, and only then head over to encircle the other with "all" of my love.

I needed to figure this out. I quickly learned that my heart is actually rather small. I have always figured that I have a “big” heart, but even a large heart weighs no more than 12 ounces, well less than a pound. Even if my entire body was full of heart, it would still only amount to about 197 hearts, and that number is far from boundless. How could this be?

I believe that if I tried to blow 197 breaths into a rubber balloon, that it would pop long before I got to 197. Similarly, if I allowed the gas nozzle at the filling station to pump gas into my truck's tank without stopping, it would eventually overflow and make a potentially dangerous mess, but not so with my heart. I can be loved multiple times during the day, and there would still be room for more love to flow in, from friends, family, farm animals, and even from the creek valley we call home.

My heart can also give love without end. It must be kind of like that bottomless cup of coffee at our favorite local breakfast place. We don't go there that often, but we are known regulars. The waitress smiles as she brings our coffee cups. Oh my, that first sip is so perfect. I inhale. Its flavor fills my morning, and my heart.

Then it occurs to me. My love is always being replenished, in both small and quiet ways like the perfect cup of coffee, and in huge ways, like Greg's beaming smile at the end of long day working the farm. I know that my heart is so much more than 12 ounces, and I know that it is always full, and is always ready to send all of its love both near and far.

There is this funny thing about love. It has no need to be measured.

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.