What is real...

"He never loved me.  I've known that."
She spoke quietly with a gentleness that seemed like it should be out of place and yet somehow, it wasn't. 
"He loved my love for him."
Slowly her head moved from left to right and back again and her eyes closed against the words,
"It is not the same."
"Love, real love, withstands the demands of sacrifice.  We don't all forge that kind of love, we're not all tested the same.  But real love, when given the choice, always determines to bleed. 
Real love embraces the darkness in another.  It does not excuse or explain away or keep it's eyes half-closed against corruption.  It opens it's eyes wide and takes the whole landscape into view, then leans the force of it's wholeness into brokenness, chasing away the darkness with the light of it's goodness.  It doesn't expect that which it is unwilling to give."
"Who wouldn't want to be loved like that?" My voice cracked as the beauty of her explanation caught in my throat.
She looked at me then, and saw my sorry eyes.
She smiled an old smile.
"Don't be sad for me my dear," she spoke intensely, "Don't you dare think I've lost."
"What is better?  To be the object of whimsy and poetry and vapor?
Or to know you carry in your being the capacity to love beyond yourself, beyond your own blood and your very own breath?"
She quieted then and I saw her chin rise just an inch in defiance.
"I will choose to love every time.  It is how I become like the one who loves me most," she whispered carefully and clearly, though it didn't seem like she was speaking to me.
I pulled the blanket up over her frail shoulders, tucking them under her chin.  I leaned my forehead lightly onto the side of her head and spoke quietly into her ear, "I love you Grandma Grace."  I hesitated, "At least, I hope I would, if I had the chance to." 
Her chest rose and fell and her breathing deepened.  I would have liked to hear more, but she was already resting...deeply resting.