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Debbie Kish's avatar

Hmm. Loyalty. Well I think it depends.

I believe I'm a very loyal person. If someone trusts me with a secret my lips remained sealed. But at times that secret gets let out to the person I was holding it for and then does the other feel I wasn't loyal to them.

After my husband passed and when I first started dating again I wondered if I was going to be perceived as being disloyal. After all I was still young and wanted another chance at love. Did I feel disloyal. I think initially. But I also I know he would have wanted me to continue to live life.

I was loyal to my employer for 30 years and then one day, I as I was told, my performance as far as they were concerned wasnt good enough and they fired me.

Yes it depends. Maybe I believe loyalty has to be earned now. Maybe I'm more cynical than I used to be when it comes to loyalty.

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Amelia's avatar

To me Loyalty is something I bestow not because it is demanded of me - because wrapped up in it is Trust and Forbearance and I have discovered that forbearance plays a vital role.

The thirteen years I spent with my first husband, a prolific and dedicated artist, were transformative for me. However sometime during the final year of his life, I realized that my trust and forbearance had been wavering because of miniscule, incremental actions of his over time. I began to reflect on the positive and negative implications and concluded that I should leave my marriage.

Just as I had mustered up the courage to do this my husband became seriously ill, needed hospitalization and, to survive, a strict regimen to follow. I chose loyalty to him over my personal desire, there was time for my needs to be met.

Well, he chose to ignore his regimen and within 3 months suffered a massive heart attack. On his last day as I was drawing in another room, he put his head in and said “everything will be alright “as he continued down the hall and collapsed. And everything has been alright. Over the past 53 years I have been the loyal steward of his life’s work and continue to be so and have been duly rewarded as his legacy prevails.

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