Do You Believe All Love Is The Same?
There are a total of 8 definitions for love in Websters online dictionary. The first 7 could apply to a marriage, number 8 is about tennis. The first 4 definitions have A, B, C and 1,2,3.
I think this tells us defining love into a mere sentence in the dictionary is nearly impossible.
How would you define love?
Meeting Jason, loving Jason, losing Jason has shown me that I no longer believe love is a shared universal definition, neither is pain, sorrow, grief. We only know versions of those feelings that exist within our own bounds of experiencing them. Until we have experiences beyond our own version of these feelings, we are also less able to relate with those who have experienced differently than us. This concept is often spoken about in grief. But in my mind this same concept exists in love.
We do not know a version of a love that is greater than our own love, either the love we give out or the love we take in, because we have never experienced anything better, or different. There are people who go their entire lives without experiencing beyond surface level love.
I am sure people won’t like to hear that, but well, some love is superior to others. I know it. I have witnessed it in my own two eyes in the way I see different people in different relationships. I believe I lived a different version of love through loving Jason. No one love is the same, and that’s both beautiful and scary. But we only know love in the way it has been defined and executed in our own lives.
I know a different version of love than I ever even thought was possible, because I met Jason. I didn’t meet Jason with the expectation to be loved in the way that he loved me, only he showed me that type of love existed. I also didn’t expect to love Jason in the way I loved him. I found love within myself that I didn’t even know existed, because of Jason. Actions, feelings, the ability to love that was enhanced by our circumstances. But even before he was diagnosed with cancer.
I believe the same was true with Jason. Jason was married before he met me. Just from knowing Jason, I know he’d tell anyone that the way he loved me was no where the same as the love he had in his first marriage. There are many factors here, the main one being that I believe life, the good and the bad, shapes our ability to love. Our circumstances, our beings, our paths that led us together, every single factor in that shapes the way we loved each other.
I saw something recently that was from some reel on instagram, stating that the happiest couples this therapist sees are those where both people in the relationship believe they are so lucky to have found each other. Seems so obvious right? Of course people who are together should believe they are each lucky to have each other, except honestly, in reality, I would tell you I don’t believe all relationships have that equal believement of luck. Do you look at your partner and say I am so lucky that this person continues to choose me, every single day, despite that I fail or have my flaws? Or do you look at your partner and think, I love this person, because this is what society tells me life should be like. But I’d like to complain to my friends about how he missed his chore and didn’t go take the trash out? I look at the world around me and I think there are a lot of people who are just simply co-existing.
I am not going to pretend Jason and I were perfect, we of course argued, we did not see eye to eye on everything, we both slipped up, but we made an agreement early on in our relationship that those types of things, like forgetting to take the trash out, missing the dishes, putting a trash bag back into the bin after taking it out. Those are small things. And they stay between us. There is absolutely no good to anyone for that type of conversation, except between yourselves. I smile, thinking about a video Jason sent me one day, I forgot to put a bag in the kitchen trash bin after taking it out. This video he sends me is cute, funny. But he’s telling me I missed putting a bag in the bin. He run’s me through a three step process of how to put a trash bag into the bin. Obviously, I know how to put a bag into the bin. It became a running joke, because I would accidentally do this a lot, take the trash out and forget to put a bag back in the bin.
Walking through cancer with Jason could’ve done two things to our love, it could’ve enhanced it or it could’ve broken it. Thankfully, we did not break, we blossomed. We loved in a way that I believe not everyone can understand. But I would bet you there are a lot of relationships out there that could not survive this type of life experience. A lot of marriages that teeter on life being good, and fold under pressure. Most people don’t experience this type of stress or health issues in a relationship until they are much later in their life, or ever. For Jason and me, all of this collided with our most joyous season. Engagement and Marriage. Some of the worst fights we had were right after Jason was diagnosed with cancer. I can’t even remember what they were about, but getting a cancer diagnosis is fucking stressful and tension was high. Two people receiving really bad news, differently, trying to still love and exist and support one another. Loving someone and showing up for them through real struggle is hard. And if that sentence confuses you, consider yourself lucky. Love holds strong, but when the world continues to knock you down, it gets harder to get back up. When you are in a marriage, you are navigating both your own pains within the journey as well as your spouses, and they may not always be the same. The way you knew your relationship to be, changes. Instead of date nights and getting out together to do fun things, your time is now spent in doctor’s offices, infusion labs, hospitals. The days end in exhaustion. There is a type of lonely that exists for both people, that is hard to speak about. You keep trying to show up for each other, it just looks different than it did before. Different isn’t bad, it’s just different. It looks nothing like the outside life all your peers are living. People can’t relate to you, the only other person who can is the one who is sick. This could bring you closer, but it is also really hard. The energy changes, because there is a chronic stress over the entire thing. It is just different.
Like I said, if you don’t understand it, then you are lucky. I would suggest you ask yourself, could I hold strong through something like this? If the entire dynamic of my relationship changed after a life changing diagnosis, could I change my entire life for the person I love?
At our wedding, I stood up and read this:
“Jason, What a journey for us to get to this day. Seven months ago, a dear friend of ours wrote me a letter. She writes “You’re on a roller coaster of a journey - not the one you envisioned for planning your wedding! Most people don’t get to know so much about how their future spouse handles a crisis, even before they’re married. When people felt sorry for me for marrying a blind man, I felt instead that I had a pre-tested one who emerged as himself. That confidence is what I wish for you.”
I stand here today with that confidence. Confidence in this love, this marriage, this life we will build together. It has been a blessing to see you, to know you, every single day of this road, good and bad. What an honor to watch you become the best version of yourself, despite life kicking you in the butt. It is a joy and honor to stand up here tonight as your wife. Inspired by the fact that no matter what, we have come out ahead. To know that you have my back no matter what and you will show up every day for us in our future. I love you Jason! I cannot wait for all the days ahead and to truly soak in these moment of joy and celebration with you tonight!“
One month and one week later from reading that note in front our of family and friends, Jason’s cancer would re-occur. 10 Months later, Jason would be death.
Cancer didn’t take our love. It challenged it, it enhanced it. There were days when it blossomed and days when love was the only thing we had to hold onto. Our love for each other changed, in the most beautiful way. We loved more than we had before. We leaned into each other and to that love. It was what we had to carry us through. When we fall in love, we are typically witnessing someone at their best. Well cancer brings out the worst. Because cancer is the worst. You learn a lot about your person when you watch them navigate this type of pain, and struggle, especially when it is all pain in struggle outside of their (and your) own control. You also learn a lot about yourself. The words in my wedding speech, from that card, are true. There are so many people who do not get to see how their future spouse handles real crisis. Yet, somehow with me and Jason, cancer also brought out the best. So much of the bull shit and outside noise doesn’t matter. We leaned into the “I am the luckiest person in the world to have you by my side every day” mentality.
Jason would always say the good in this journey will outweigh the bad. The man had stage 4 cancer, he was in deep pain, and yet he clung to our love. He would tell everyone that I was his saving grace. That cancer would be so much harder if he didn’t have me. His care team would say that I was carrying him through. He was fighting for me. They could physically see and feel the way he changed when I joined a call or was in the room. I was his safe space through hell. I made him feel seen and heard, I was his advocate on a journey that felt unbearable.
On the last instagram post he ever shared, from March 20, 2025. A photo of us on our couch cuddling with Nora. He wrote
“Lauren you light up my world. All this hard work and suffering from cancer is worth it if I have you the finish line. Forever and ever I will always love you. Thank you for sitting in these endless patient rooms and giving me that gorgeous smile, letting me know that it’s alright. That we are more than alright. That we got whatever is put in front of us for the rest of our lives. I love you.”
We were alright. So long as we were together. Though every second of cancer, all I needed to feel ok, was him.
And that is a kind of love that I don’t think many know.
I was there at his finish line. Probably not in the way he imagined when he wrote those words. I held him tightly and told him it was ok to let go. He had finished his race. He fought like hell. Only I was not ready for him to finish the race, this wasn’t the finish line I ever imagined. I always thought we would get so much more time.
I am angry for many reasons that cancer killed Jason. But one of those reasons is those two people, us, who bloomed in that love through hell, deserved to see that love come out the other side. We were not the same couple as when we started this journey. Everything about our relationship changed, mostly in the best way possible. We became stronger for each other. We really learned what selfless love was. I loved him in a way that I really didn’t know was possible. I believe he loved me in a way he never imagined himself loving.
Jason wasn’t just my husband. He was my soulmate. The person who knew me best, who saw me, and loved every bit of me. Who needed my love to walk this road. I know I was that for him, too. Loving someone like that and walking them to the end of their life is both beautiful and horribly tragic. My heart aches every day for the love that Jason deserved longer in this life. It aches for myself for all that I lost and all that I won’t ever get to have with Jason. Loving Jason changed me. Cancer changed me too. It is hard to put it into words sometimes. But I know our love was different and unique. A love that most are not lucky enough to find. There are days when it all makes me so angry, because out in the world there are people complaining about their husbands not taking the trash out, and meanwhile, my husband is dead. I’d give anything for Jason to have missed trash day, because that would mean he was here, and life would be normal.
