Generations Video Biographies: How much does love cost?

The Thanksgiving holiday is over now. I am flying back north as I write this with my head full of very poignant, sweet moments for Thanksgiving 2012.

Holidays don’t come cheap for me anymore. When I leave my home up north to fly to the warmth of my birthplace and my family, it comes at a price. The calculation goes something like $80 a day for the housesitter/dog walker who stays with my two older dogs (remember that the cost of living in Chicago is higher than most places). That is really the deepest discount I get on the list.

Wrinkles and Emmy-Lou are getting older now. They sleep a lot. One walk a day is fine and they never have the stress of leaving the confines of what they know: their home. Because they have been with me so long, there are certain things that I can rely on from them. They are my steady, easy, and somewhat wise, canine companions. I take comfort in that when I leave them with someone who is unfamiliar to them, I trust them to do the right thing…and they do just that. At their age, I treat them with a tad more care because I understand that as much as I love them and whatever attentive care I give…they won’t last forever. So despite the extra expense, I open my wallet. I love them that much. It’s just that simple.

My other two dogs, Eden and Lily are not so lucky. While I wish they could stay home, they are young and excitable…even careless you might say. Because they are young and have less experience to draw on, their reactions to things are sometimes less than best. In fact, sometimes their reactions are just plain awful. They haven’t yet reached the seasoned maturity of my senior citizens. They can screw-up. I plan accordingly for that. I pack them into the car with their toys, food and beds and drop them at the boarding facility. Their big, sad eyes watch me walk away and my heart is wrenched to do it, but know I am keeping them safe from themselves; from any lack-of-wisdom kind of quirk in their otherwise usually good days that might put them at risk. I get them a suite, not a cage. They have playtime. They have treats. That usually runs about $100 a day.

Flying is, roughly, $1300 for the three of us: me, my husband and son. That doesn’t include cabs to and from the airport or parking. Like I said, holidays are not cheap, but if you have to assign a price to being with those you love, then that is mine.

But that momentary financial reflection started me thinking about other costs associated with how we love our families; of the intangible costs. I have been lucky enough to say that every one of my siblings is someone I would choose as a friend. Each brother, each sister, has been and is, there for me in the deep waters of my life. They make me proud of them…of us, in a way that I can barely articulate. We are all quite different and don’t agree on every point, but for me that is one of the treasures of us. The love means so much, that it is no sacrifice to agree to disagree. When it is "us," we turn our heads. It is a love that means more than my ego feeling of wanting to be right about something. Now I have some mighty strong opinions about things, but when I might take exception to a thing said by one of my family that strays far from my center, my mind wanders to the million other wonderful things that outweigh having my nose ajar at a perceived slight or misunderstanding: the widowed sister who left her own two children to fly to Mayo Clinic to hold me up and care for me or the brother who slept on my couch when I had chemotherapy and slept for two solid days. This is who we are, this small circle of us, whose biology reads the same. These are memories that only we understand...a special bond to have in a world that is often unkind. I try to handle that circle delicately and with the Corinthian Biblical description of how to protect something so fragile:

1 Corinthians 13:4-13

New International Version (NIV)

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

We are all growing old together now. I guess that you could say that about our whole lives really. We were always headed towards the older selves we wear right now, though time seems to be moving faster as we age. I understand that in the same way I understand about my sweet, predictable, reliable senior canines; that these family relationships are precious to me and that they won’t last forever.

I realized some of these things while I was home this year. And when I lay my head on my pillow at the end of every day I know this:

whatever it costs, I am willing to pay it. And I am looking forward to Christmas-time with the wonderful circle that is my family.