You Can Love.

Today the world teaches us that we have to have goals, plans, dreams. Live for the future. IRA CD stock market shares insurance pre-paid grave stones just add body. Corporate ladders and careers and a job well done. Make every penny count, and every step and sit up and calorie too, so you can live longer, healthier, more productive, get more have more rest when you retire.

You can love.

Even kids have ambition. What will you be when you grow up? Doctor, lawyer, scientist? Write the next great novel? Walk on Mars? You gotta have a plan to get there, gotta be hungry, gotta want it.

You can love.

Life is a struggle, and what we get out of it is exactly what we fight for, tooth and nail, no matter who else gets hurt along the way.

Do we know? Do we care?

Because if we care, then we have to do something, don’t we? Give something up? Not have, so someone else can? Be the loser, so someone else can win?

You can love.

There's a woman in my life who doesn't remember who I am, doesn't remember changing my diapers and holding me when I was helpless, not even able to walk. She's not really sure where she is or what all the things around her are. Sometimes she remembers that the books are hers, but they're hard to make sense out of. Sometimes she gets lost in her own house. She's scared, and lonely for the people she knew and grew up with. Mom, siblings, cousins, aunts all gone. Just this nice stranger who says she's a granddaughter and brings the food and finds the lost things. And tucks her into bed. Because she loves.

There's a man living far from his wife and the child they fought so hard to have, so many lost pregnancies and false alarms. He teaches young men to do a good job of protecting other people's safety while looking out for themselves, so more of them will come home on their own two feet. It's hard for him to be so far away as his child grows up and his wife tries hard to be brave because she misses him too and things sometimes happen even though the teachers are supposed to be safe. But he loves.

There's a young woman who has worked so hard to learn skills that let her help others learn, communicate, and grow. And when she comes home she has three little adopted loves who call her mommy, depend on her for everything, and give the best hugs there are in return. She misses sleep, grabs quick meals and hurries through chores so she can spend that extra little bit of time with them. Because she loves.

They have dreams, and plans, and goals. And have redirected them so there is room for love. And when their struggle is hard, the money is tight or the night is cold and long, love provides the courage and comfort to go on. Love inspires you to do things you never thought you could, things beyond your plans and missing from your dreams.

You can love.

There was a man who helped load groceries into a car for a woman with a broken leg. There was a man who passed his hamburger out his car window to a homeless man. There was a woman who held the hand of an accident victim until paramedics arrived. There was a woman who brought furry joy to patients in a nursing home. There was a boy who raised money to buy toys for kids in the hospital. There was a family that spent their spare time bringing food and hungry people together.

All that was love.

Not one would tell you that the time, effort, money wasn't worth it. Not one would say that they wouldn't do it again. And I bet, given the chance, that they’d help someone else again.

You, too, can love.