Once on Saturday Night Live, Chris Farley did a bumbling interview with Paul McCartney, where Chris says, “Remember when you were in the Beatles and you did that album Abbey Road? At the very end of the song, it goes ‘And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.’ Is that true?”

And Paul McCartney patiently answers, “Yes, Chris, in my experience it is. I find the more you give, the more you get.”

Chris Farley’s question was meant to get laughs, but now I’m thinking that it was actually a deep and profound question.

I was listening to Abbey Road on the way home from my aunt’s funeral yesterday. “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” I started wondering, is that true?

How do you measure someone’s love, or the impact that person has had on your life? My aunt was a matriarch in a time when those are few and far between. I can’t measure her influence on me because it is so ingrained — it’s in my bones and blood.

It shows up in different ways. Girl is named for my aunt. I was unsure whether to buy this house, until I saw that it backs up to a brown muddy river that looks very much like the bayou near hers. I can trace the roots of my beliefs to her.

I can’t answer the question as easily as Paul McCartney did, because I don’t think that love is always an equal equation. Sometimes the love you take is immeasurable.

Golden slumbers fill your eyes. Smiles await you when you rise. Sleep pretty darling do not cry. And I will sing your lullaby.