Mini Habit 28: Love is an act

“Love isn’t an act, it’s a whole life.

It’s staying with her now because she needs you;

it’s knowing you and she will still care about each other

when sex and daydreams, fights and futures—

when all that’s on the shelf and done with.

Love—why,

I’ll tell you what love is:

it’s you at seventy-five and her at seventy-one,

each of you listening for the other’s step

in the next room, each afraid

that a sudden silence, a sudden cry,

could mean a lifetime’s talk is over.”

Brian Moore, The Luck of Ginger Coffey