Love

The complex phenomenon called love finds its one description in the following words of Lao Tzu: “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage (http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2622245.Lao_Tzu).”

This conviction of love’s ability to give strength and courage found a home in me beginning with the year of 2005, the end of a year during which I faced one of my most trying ordeals.  The summer of 2008, while being a time to take me to a new state of trial, enabled me a realization that heightened anew – and continues to intensify today – my passion for life.  All along, I had been deeply loving the same someone, gaining courage from my love during my thus far most difficult experiences.  I had, however, not been aware of the depth to which extent that someone had been loving me.  All along, having to face and come to terms with the unwavering tribulations of my mutually wounding ordeal, nesting within the one of own.

Coming across Lao Tzu’s words just recently when a late January 2013 blog on my host platform – WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE: LOVE– was still on my mind now feels like this coincidental bridging was meant to be. Hadn’t Kant claimed that coincidences are not about a coincidence, after all?

Sara Rosso, the writer who conceived the challenge in question, had one invitation to other bloggers: “share a picture which means LOVE to you!”

I haven’t had the chance to participate in that challenge on its deadline.  I am, however, dedicating this Sunday’s post to it.  Aside from the obvious (a scene from Venice), my photograph captures that someone with whom I share love at its ultimate state, gaining strength and courage from the depth of its multitude of dimensions.  To fulfill my lifelong wish, I had made arrangements to visit Venice and Florence with her.  When I arrived in Germany for a brief visit with her first before we took of to Italy, she started feeling sick.  Everything for our trip was arranged, yet she only got sicker.  Without skipping a beat, she forbade me from cancelling our entire trip – which I was ready to do and kept me company to her best capacity while at our destinations.  She knew that I wouldn’t go to my dream sites on my own.  She knew how important that trip was for me for reasons that only she and I knew the best.  In addition to her sickness, she had to leave her husband behind, for no visa arrangements could be completed for him.  They were still newlyweds.

My daughter.

Out of respect for her most cherished privacy, I have opted for a picture that shows only her back.  Instead of her outer beauty that is in immense harmony with her inner beauty.  Dear Sara Rosso, here I am sharing a picture which means LOVE to me!