It was love at first sight.

I knew how the kid felt who clambered breathlessly through his front door and cried, "Dad! I'm in love!"

"How do you know it's love?" his father asked.

"Because, when I kissed her goodnight, her dog bit me and I never even felt it 'til I got home!"

Even without the dog bite test I knew it was love.

She knew it, too. But six weeks later (when she asked me to marry her!) I began to notice something peculiar about her love. "I love you too much to hold on to you," she said. "I want you to be happy, and if that means we won't be together then it's okay."

Another time she said, "I love you so much I want to let you go. Don't feel tied to me."

That sounded peculiar. You see, my love was a little different. "I love you so much I want to make you mine" was my kind of love. "I love you so much I'm never going to let you go."

My love was a hanging-on kind of love. Her's was a letting-go kind of love. My love worried about what it might do to me if I lost her. Her love worried about what it might do to us if she hung on too tightly.

One day she returned from a doctor's appointment distraught. "He told me I can't have babies." Her swollen eyes overflowed. "I know you want children. I'll understand if you don't want to marry," she continued. "I love you too much to keep you." There again, that peculiar letting-go kind of love.

All of this happened many years ago and, in the meantime, I've learned something about love. Love can sometimes be about letting go. It's as simple and as difficult as that.

And I've learned something else, too. The doctor was wrong about the babies. Three times.

• Added: April 01, 2000
• Author: Steve Goodier

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