What's the Best Caregiving Emotion?

This week, Denise Brown, founder of Caregiving.com  posed this question on her site to caregivers everywhere:

What's the best caregiving emotion?

That's a big question. For me the answer can change from hour to hour on any given day:

~Sometimes it's just the pure joy of knowing my life is dedicated to something so crucial as helping another person live another day.

~At other times, I feel the pride of being part of helping my son conquer a trial or reach a new goal.

~I feel compassion for the hurting, the satisfaction of a job well done, appreciation for a respite day.

~I am deeply grateful for all God has done for us.

Today, though, I want to celebrate loyalty.

You may think of loyalty as a personality trait, not an emotion. And it is an admirable characteristic of human nature. But it's so much more. The feeling of loyalty is what keeps a caregiver getting up and caring for a loved one--day after day, year after year.

That dedication to someone who needs us is a powerful motivator. It pushes us beyond our normal limits, past the usual boundaries to give sacrificially, completely, without reserve.

It intertwines us with our loved one like two trees that grow together, until it is impossible to uproot one without breaking the other. Both are strengthened and stabilized in its grip.

If loyalty were a color, it would be blue, as vast as the sky above and as powerful as an ocean tide, pulling us ever upward and onward.

Beyond the pain. Above the discouragements. Into a place of peace.