Love Stories

Did you know we were on the cover of a magazine?

I've mentioned it here before, but I'm writing a book. Horray! It's coming along well and I find the whole process--writing, researching, rewriting, reading, editing, researching some more--ridiculously fun and rewarding. I am having a blast.

In my research this week I came across what you could call a gold mine. My book is a biography told as a collection of anecdotes, and I found the life story of my subject's wife that she wrote before she passed away but long after he did. I was excited to see her accounts of their life together and opened the folder quickly. Then the title page took me by surprise and stopped me short.

"My Life: A Love Story"

There it was, put simply, transcribed on an old typewriter sometime in the middle of the 20th century. My Life: A Love Story. How lovely to consider your life that way--to be able to look back on your life after decades of marriage and decades more of widowhood and say decidedly, "My life has been a love story."

I came home after an hour or so of reading and transcribing with her title still on my mind. Of course, I asked myself, "Is my life a love story?"

I've thought about it a lot this week and today when I went back and opened that autobiography again, I realized I felt the same way she did. My life is a love story, but before you write this off as a lovey-dovey post, hear me out.

Ryan and I met cute. We had dramatic ups and downs in our months of dating that culminated in a joyous engagement and happy wedding. We have learned and grown together, learning from each other's strengths and compensating for each other's weaknesses. And the plan is to keep this good thing going.

At my graduation from BYU-Idaho, April 2010

But my life was a love story long before I met my husband. I loved my mother and father before I loved anyone, and they loved me too. I felt love in my home from them and from my siblings, and I instantly loved my little nieces and nephews.

My parents and I on one of my favorite trips -- New York City, 2009

I grew and came to love my friends at school, my teachers and my neighbors. I learned to love God and tried to understand what that meant. I learned how to show love to my family and others through service and communication. I tried to love my enemies.

When Ryan came along, I recognized a different kind of love. And that's when I knew I could marry him. I did, we were happy, life was good. I thought I knew what love was.

Just moments after I became a mother.

And then Lyla came along. She opened in my heart a whole new capacity for love I didn't know I had. I can only imagine what her brothers and sisters will do.

So at the risk of making this post even cheesier than it already is, let me say this: it seems to me that life is just one big love story.