Love is Forgiving

My parents

(my dad and my step mom) have been married/engaged for fourteen years. Fourteen years!! Now I say married/engaged because they have never really had a "real" wedding. They have never stood at an alter and said "I do" but I feel like they knew that they didn't need that to love each other, unconditionally, forever. Watching them as I grow up has taught me a lot about love. A lot about the fact that love is forgiving. Love forgives over and over again. I think the act of love is mostly that, learning to forgive and accept people even with their faults. They both screw up, they both get mad at each other and yell and tell each other that they suck but at the end of the day they go to bed together, laughing and telling each other they love each other. I want a love like that. I want a love that is messy, yet it never gives up. They have been together for fourteen years and I have never, not even once seen them not hold hands through the grocery store. I have never, not once seen them not kiss each other at least once a day. Their love is undying. They are always smiling and loving each other by the end of the day, no matter how hard it might seem. It is not always perfect, but no one told us that love was perfect. In fact I think that is just something we make up in our head, some vision we think love should be. It shouldn't be though because if it was you wouldn't have to make choices, you wouldn't have to choose everyday to love someone, you would just love them and that would make everything too easy, it would make love boring and dull. I want a love I have to fight for, a love I have to even fight with. Do not expect someone you love to be perfect, I mean has your parents, siblings, grandparents, been perfect? No. Yet you still love them, you still forgive them, so why would you expect your significant other to be perfect? My grandma and grandpa have been married for forty something years, they do not sleep in the same bed or the same room because my grandpa has MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and it is hard for him to sleep, yet their love is very much alive, very much undying. No matter how many times my grandpa runs into my grandmas nice painted walls with his wheelchair and says he's sorry every time, she loves him. Even though she has to bathe him everyday, and cut his hair with the clippers as he falls asleep sitting up in his wheelchair every other Tuesday, she still tells him she loves him every time she leaves the house. Love is forgiveness, it is taking the bad and saying all that bad, all that work is worth the end result. It is worth the hand holding, the I love yous, the laughs and the ability to spend time with one person for the rest of your life. My grandparents have been with each other longer than they have been alone.  Think about that. They have been next to each other day by day, longer than they have spend days alone, and they are happy with that. They are more than happy. Their love is hard, it is a lot of work for my grandma since my grandpa cannot do a lot by himself. A lot of people ask my grandma how she does it and how she hasn't just walked away yet. She always looks at them as if they are crazy and says, because I love him, how could I possibly leave my husband who I love, like that, in his state alone? That would be selfish of me wouldn't it? That is always her answer, love. It doesn't matter that my grandpa can no longer walk, that he has night terrors, he cant make his own meals and he is losing his eyesight, my grandma has undying love for him. For everything that he is, the caring man that he is. That is true love to me, sacrificing easy moments you could have alone for hard ones to help and support someone else.  Love is undying, no matter the circumstances, Love is all about how much you can live with, Love is forgiveness, an act of selflessness. Love is taking someone for the good the bad, the ugly and loving them through it all.  Love is forgiveness and I want a love that is forgiving, a love that is undying, a love like my parents and grandparents.