Love is thankfulness for the existence of the beloved

"Love is gratitude: it is thankfulness for the existence of the beloved; it is the happy acceptance of everything that he gives without jealous feeling that the self ought to be able to do as much; it is a gratitude that does not seek equality; it is wonder over the other's gift of himself in companionship. Love is reverence; it keeps its distance even as it draws near; it does not seek to absorb the other; it desires the beloved to be what he is and does not seek to refashion him into a replica of the self or to make him a means to the self's advancement. As reverence love is and seeks knowledge of the other not by way of curiosity nor for the sake of gaining power, but in rejoicing and wonder. Love is loyalty it is the willingness to let the self be destroyed rather than the other cease to be."  H. Richard Niebuhr