The other team had color-coordinated everything… and classy coolers full of ridiculously healthy snacks.

Our team at least had matching red jerseys (kind of), juice boxes and homemade cookies… plus a lot of spunk.

The other team had cute, little girl cheerleaders.

Our team had two scrappy boys who decided to cheer-lead for their brother.

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I love that my sons stick up for each other.  They’d never be mushy and say “I love you”… although I know they do.

On the flip side they are each others most harsh critic.  Yet I know they’d go to hell and back for one another.

Two of them did, actually.  Into the heart of war-torn Iraq.  They went for each other. For the brothers they served with. For us back home.  They were touched by the faces of nameless children caught in hellish violence.  They came home better, stronger men.

They didn’t physically find each other on that side of the world, but they found each other on this side… safe and sound and whole… just the way that makes a mama’s heart happy and ends the story well.

Last weekend I was in California helping my folks with legal decisions and money decisions and “where will I live” decisions.  It was hard stuff for them to talk about.  Hard to make big changes to lives already well lived, long lived.  But it was easy for me to be there.  It was a privilege to be there.  And it was all tied up in a big bow of love… feelings and all.

And then I travel back to this one I provide care for… this one I feel so estranged from… where there is no “feeling”.  And it makes me crazy there isn’t.  Isn’t there supposed to be, regardless of past hurts?  Just a little flicker of something?  Am I cold-hearted, uncaring?

I recently read a quote posted on Facebook, of all places, by author Ann Voskamp.  She said – Love isn’t a feeling but a tying.  The practical translation of “I Love You” is “I am tied to You” – no matter what breaks loose.

I like that.  It’s helping me come to terms with this one I can’t find the love feeling for.

Because we are absolutely tied in many ways, like it or not.  And I am committed to a set of responsibilities, like it or not.  And perhaps, the act of doing something she can no longer do for herself really is a way of loving… regardless if there’s a feeling attached.

My husband thinks I think too much.  He might be right.  But maybe I’m on to something.

So from now on…

Love = I am tied to you = I will honor the commitments those ties created = Love

That might be goofy, but I’m rolling with it……