I’m Grateful For Gravity

Love is like gravity. You barely notice it when it’s there, but when it’s gone, the world completely changes. I can’t imagine what my world would be like without Mrs. Lion. Her love supports me and keeps me grounded. Every corner of my life includes her. I’m pretty sure it’s the same for her. It’s the way marriage is supposed to work. This is both a blessing and a curse. All love ends in either divorce or death.

The deeper the love, the more tragic its end. I’m older than my lioness and much more likely to die first. Death is the only thing that can separate us. I worry about her. I suppose that’s normal. It’s worries like this that keeps the life insurance industry rich. That’s not what this post is about.

It’s about appreciation. We don’t appreciate gravity because we’ve never had to live without it. I’ve stuck to the earth, sometimes painfully, when I’ve fallen since my birth. I expect to continue until I die. I’ve been with Mrs. Lion for over twenty years. It’s hard to remember not being with her.

She’s taken care of me when I’ve been sick or needed surgery. She fills in the cracks in my life created by my loss of vision and balance. Like gravity, she does this silently without complaint or cost to me. I know it isn’t free for her. She has to do a lot of things I did in the past. She doesn’t look for gratitude or praise. Like gravity, she just keeps me firmly in contact with the ground.

I am grateful. I plainly see the extra burden I’ve become. It hurts me that I’ve come to this. The alternative seems worse, at least for now. If I’m gone, the workload lessens and stress might be reduced. I think I would be missed, at least for a while.

I keep asking myself if I’m being selfish. Am I just taking up space and wasting her energy? I’m happy in my newly limited world. Thanks to her, I’ve been able to compensate for most of my lost abilities. But at what cost? Gravity seems happy to keep me glued to the planet. I hope Mrs. Lion is too.

Listen to this post.