Love Defined by a Ninety-Year-Old

My father at home with his favorite Sonic Burgers!

My daughter recently sent me some quotations where children were asked to define love.  Some of them were pretty cute.

“Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”

“Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."

"Love is when you kiss all the time.  Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more.  My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss"

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you."

But when my 90-year-old father was in a rehabilitation center for about 20 days, he gave me a new definition of love. Apparently he felt disoriented one day and bugged the nurses until they allowed him to call me.

His only words have become my favorite definition of love: “I want to be where you are.” Of course it hit me hard, and I left my chores immediately to go and sit with him.

The more I thought of it, the more I decided his words define love--whether from a father to a child, a husband to a wife, or friend to friend.  If we love someone, we simply want to be with that person.

Jesus Himself confirmed this in John 17 when He prayed to His Father and said, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given me, be with Me where I am…” John 17:24

Do you have any favorite definitions of love? How have some of your favorite characters in books defined love?”