Love Conquers All

The other day I went over to my parents' house to pick up Daughter and my dad was outside working in the yard. My mother has been in the hospital for the past 2 weeks, so he's just been there alone with the menagerie (dog, cat, the once stray cockatiel). I was walking to my car and he looked at me with the saddest look I've EVER seen on his face and said "I need a hug." I have never, EVER heard my dad say anything like that before, and it just hurt me to the core of my soul because I could see, hear and FEEL the sadness and fear that I know he has over my mother's condition.

I bring up my parents' relationship a lot, because.... well, your parents are your model for relationships. And my stance has been that I don't understand why they've been married for 30+ years and never ever seem to get along, and the stress and the drama are literally killing them. Last week I was trying to calm my mother down (to keep her blood pressure from going up) as she was crying about how she was convinced that my dad didn't care that she was sick. *sigh* Frustrating.....

Why in the heck would my dad put up with this for all these years?? That's what I always ask myself. But I think I got my answer Tuesday: It's just Love. He loves my mother to death, despite all her antics and anger and accusations. He told me once years ago that he made a promise to my grandfather that he would take care of his oldest daughter and grandchild and that he intended to never go back on that. But even aside from his word to my grandpa, I could tell standing in that driveway that the answer was love. Love makes you do stupid things, put up with stupid things, and perform stupid superhuman feats that make absolutely no sense to the outside world. Love. Conquers. All.

(... which I think is what caused things to go awry in my marriage. I just didn't love him anymore. There was no glue, so all the crazy pieces fell apart. I guess.)