Thermopylae

         When I was a child I asked my father, “ What is love?” He looked me dead in the eye and said, “ Love is war. It’s something you fight for. It was conceived in blood and it is so precious that you destroy anything that tries to take it from you. When you love you don’t do it half heartedly, you do it with every ounce of energy in every molecule of your body to the exponent of infinity. You love with the passion of 300 Greeks standing against thousands upon thousands of Persians just because you love the fight. You love while knowing someone may get hurt. So when it comes to love you either come home carrying your shield or you come home on it.”  These are the words of a man who had lost his wife to a heart attack and he bled  every word.

         Like my father, I stand here today surrounded by my fellow soldiers, who have fought bravely for the glory that is love.  We have risen from the trenches of pain and heartache and now stand together once more.  Not only because we have loved, but because we have lost.  We have lost the guiding light that shone with such intensity that it would make angels squint.

         She was a friend to many and a lover to me. She loved in a way the could only be described by the greatest poet on a very good day, and he would still be at a loss for words.  She touched each one of us and carried us around like an encyclopedia dedicated to the definition of her.  Without her the world will be a darker place.  But the light that came from deep within her still shines in everyone us.  The light will spread like the cancer that took her from us. It started with her and it is now our duty to infect everyone we meet with the light of love, hope, and honor that she gave to us. Death is not the end of love. Her love was a seed that has grown into a tree and each one of us is a leaf. If we stand together we could block out the sun.

         Like 300 Spartans, we stand together with our shields locked, protecting the man standing beside us.  We stand together and we fall together, because that is all that we know.  We will shelter each other from harm and heartache.  We will face whatever comes our way head on and never look back.
 
         I have fought many battles in the war.  My body is scarred, but with each scar there’s a story.  Loving is not easy, it is a constant war that rages inside of each one of us.  I will fight until I breathe my last breath and then I’ll drift away and fight in a different war.  We are all warriors and champions, but you’ll never win if you don’t fight. I now understand the wisdom of an old battle worn warrior.  For today I stand at Thermopylae with scars of my own to show.