But today I want to add punctuation to it: Pride, in the name of love.
I've watched Lynda worked over the last few years I've known her, and felt the love (obviously), and felt the pride. The pride comes up when she tells her story, when people understand what she's overcome and what she's retained or learned from it.
Today I added the comma.
I realized that the pride I feel for her (or more accurately, the pride I feel being married to her - let alone even knowing her), is because what she does is create love where it didn't exist before. Or maybe..., not "didn't exist", but "wasn't evident." She sees a need, and creates the means for peoples' natural propensity for loving and caring to come forth.
Think about it: what she did today (or last year, at the first Taste at the Point), was create the opportunity for hundreds or people to care for those in our midst who are hurting or in pain.
A 72 year old woman with breast cancer that has now had it reappear in her pelvic bone was there today, brought by her daughter who read about in the paper. She was connected with the support groups that were there, that will give her counseling. If you forget the thousands of dollars that were raised to day that will go to women in need, you can know that today was all worth it, if only because of that 72 year old woman.
So, yes, I am proud of this woman - who is currently sitting behind me on the couch, eating dessert bars. But I am proud of her for what she does in the name of love.
