Love Is ALL There Is

There’s a question I started asking myself as a teenager. A strange one, really. Not the kind most kids my age were walking around pondering. But every so often, when I was stewing over something ridiculous or spinning out about some boy or some insecurity or some injustice (real or perceived), I’d hear this quiet little voice in my head ask:

“Will this matter when you’re on your death bed?”

I didn’t grow up in a family that talked about that kind of stuff. We weren’t sitting around the dinner table unpacking our mortality or the meaning of life. I' used to wonder where this came from...but deep down I think I always knew.

I think it came from GUS, my name for, God-Universe-Spirit. Our divine source. It certainly wasn’t a family heirloom passed down with the china tea cups and generational curses.

But somehow, that question landed in me. And when I remembered to ask it, it gave me perspective. Not the kind of perspective that made me enlightened or floaty or ready to become a monk, but just enough space to say, “Okay. Maybe I don’t need to lose sleep over this. It’s not that important”.  And sometimes, that was everything.

Of course, I didn’t always remember to ask. Life has a way of making you forget.

There were years...entire seasons...when I chased all the things we’re told will make us matter. Success. Achievement. Being liked. Looking good while still being wildly capable. Holding it all together while slowly coming apart in private. I knew how to show up, how to smile through it, how to say “I’m fine” even when I wasn’t sure what fine even meant anymore.

And then something would happen...a loss, a health scare, a quiet day where I’d just had enough...and the question would miraculously float back in.

“Will this matter when you’re on your death bed?”

And damn it, no. Most of it didn’t.

The argument. The failed thing. The opinion someone had of me that I couldn’t shake. The extra twenty pounds. The missed opportunity I obsessed over. The way I thought I should’ve been better, done more, gotten further by now.

None of that made the cut.

What did? Love. Love made the cut.

Love showed up in the moments I stood at a bedside holding the hand of someone I was losing. In the way our pets curled up beside me on a hard day and didn’t need anything but my presence. In the unexpected kindness from a stranger. In a belly laugh with someone who knew my real story. In being forgiven when I didn’t feel forgivable. And forgiving someone else when I didn’t think I could.

That kind of love...the real kind...isn’t necessarily the Hallmark-card, filtered Instagram kind. It’s the gritty, honest, raw, show-up-anyway kind. It’s the hard choice sometimes. It’s deciding to soften instead of retaliate. It’s knowing you’re right and still choosing compassion. It’s letting yourself be seen when your make-up is a mess and your hope is hanging by a thread.

It’s also letting go. Of grudges, of expectations, of being understood by everyone. That one’s hard. I’ve had to grieve being misunderstood more than I expected to in this life.

But love always leads me back.

It doesn’t mean I don’t get disappointed. I do. (Oh, I do.) It doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally plot an imaginary argument where I win in spectacular fashion. It doesn’t mean I always remember to ask the death bed question in real time. But it’s there, tucked in my back pocket, waiting.

I’ve been thinking about all the times I forgot it...when I let fear or striving or stress grab the wheel. I can look back now and see how loud the world was in those moments, and how quiet my own soul had become. It’s hard to remember love when you're buried under lists, obligations, and trying to keep up with everyone else's highlight reel.

But even then, love is still there. Waiting patiently. It doesn’t force itself in. It never shouts. It whispers.

“I’m still here. When you’re ready.”

I think that’s what I continuously learn more and more as I grow. That love isn’t just something we give or receive...it’s something we return to. Over and over again. When we’re tired. When we’ve messed up. When we feel like we don’t deserve it. When we’re lost or numb or afraid. When our world doesn’t make sense. 

We remember: Love is ALL there is.

It’s the only thing that makes anything make sense. The only thing that outlasts the noise.

We don’t get to skip the chaos. Life will keep throwing its wild punches. But we do get to choose how we anchor ourselves in the middle of it. We get to pause, breathe, and ask that question:

“Will this matter when I’m dying?”

And if the answer is no, maybe it’s time to set it down. Maybe it’s time to unclench our fists and reach for something softer. Truer. Less performative. More real.

I don’t have it all figured out. But I know this...when my life feels heavy, when my thoughts are scattered, when I’m feeling disconnected from myself and others, it’s usually because I’ve wandered away from love. And when I remember it, when I really let it back in, everything shifts.

So I’m keeping that question close. And I’m going to keep whispering it to myself and anyone who needs it:

Will this matter when I’m on my death bed?

If not, maybe I can let it go.

And let love...messy, holy, relentless love...lead the way back.

Love is ALL there is,

Diana