Happy #77: Know what you need.

"Intense love does not measure. It just gives." Mother Teresa

I wish I had kept my camera out of my suitcase to capture the event I'm about to describe. This photo I found online comes close as I could find, but doesn't do the experience justice.

My son Keaton and I were at the airport in Salt Lake City waiting for our flight to Seattle. The plane we were boarding had been delayed. When it finally arrived, we sat quietly watching as the passengers came down the loading ramp and through the doors to the terminal.

You don't see people waiting at the gates much anymore. Since 9/11 and increased security, most greetings happen at baggage claim. So I was caught off guard by what happened.

A little girl ran from her mother's arms to greet her father as he came off the plane. His face lit up as he reached down and pulled her into his chest. She threw her little arms around his neck and began to cry. She just could not hold it back. Her tiny approximately five year old body was physically unable to contain her emotion and she flat out sobbed. Sobbed. Her Dad knelt there at the gate, holding her in his arms, while she cried with her love for him.

I have no idea how long it had been since she had seen her Daddy. But I will never forget the look in her eyes when she lifted her head from his shoulders and looked at him through her tears.

I saw the love in that child's eyes for her father. I saw how deeply she was feeling her love for him.

I hope he saw what I did. I hope he saw how much she needs him and how very, very much she loves him.

I'm not sure what this has to do with knowing what you need, except to say that Thanksgiving is a good time to find awareness of and gratitude for the love around us--both the love we feel for others and the love others feel for us.

In those moments at the airport, that little girl knew precisely how grateful she was for her father. And she didn't hold back. She didn't measure her love, or carefully meter it out.

Sigmund Freud said, "We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love." Shocking, I know.

But perhaps in knowing how much we need someone, even if that love brings us to tears, we can find true gratitude for the love they offer in our lives--in whatever way they are able to offer it.

Find the five year old in you, and don't hold back. You might not get hurt very much, carefully measuring your love out, but you won't live very much that way either.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Grateful for your love,
Kathleen