True Love

small poem with a big heart

True Love

is finding someone

or something

worth suffering for

and it’s a good thing, too

because you sure do suffer

— esm

To love is to accept transience, loss, all the consequences of that love, and still, despite all, to love. From every unanswered letter or each tear in a widow’s eyes to Christ on the cross or Socrates’ hemlock, to love truly is to courageously accept suffering.

And perhaps that’s not the final word. There is hope in suffering. As Thich Nhat Hanh would remind us: “The art of happiness is also the art of knowing how to suffer well. If we know how to use our suffering, we can transform it and suffer much less.”