Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding and mutual confidence. It is sharing and forgiving, and loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and it makes allowances for human weaknesses. 

Love is content with the present, it hopes for the future, but does not brood over the past. It's the day in and day out chronicle of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals.

If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things which you lack. If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, its not enough.

We quickly learn  at a very young age just how exciting it is to be in love. And as well, just how terribly painful it can become. Just let your mind wander back to your first real crush and remember the absolute devastation  you felt when the object of your affection did not return the feelings in kind. 

Perhaps the drama of youth accounts for most of those extremes but if one is being truthful ... particularly with one's self,  age is really irrelevant when it comes to that particular emotion. It is now, and always will be a two edged sword.

Until that is, we are lucky enough to find that 'one special soul mate'. Funny isn't it how, if we are fortunate enough to attain that goal, all the hurts and disappointments seem to suddenly simply fade into memory to be recalled with a smile as we grow older and as time softens and enhances our recollections.

One thing which time certainly teaches us is to cherish those memories as we add to the remembrance inventory through the years. The years of our youth, once taken so much for granted, in retrospect take on a lustre which is unique and which often brings a smile when most needed.

The first date, the first kiss, the proposal and then marriage. The first baby and the look in your husband's eyes as he looks at you when he first holds his newborn son or daughter. Building a new family ... and watching them grow. Life's never ending cycle.

And always with you ... memories of all those days  which brought you to today. The old trunk in the attic holds so many treasures. Your first valentine from that very special boy, the first corsage from your school prom, the little mementos of special occasions not to be forgotten. 

The box which held your engagement ring ... along with the ribbon with which that box was tied, your wedding gown, each of your babies christening robes, the lock of hair from that first traumatic hair cut or the first lost tooth. All so precious in their own right and cumulatively a goldmine of memories proving why love is so important to each of us.

Memories which become infinitely more precious as the years rush by. For they truly do rush by, and before you know it you find yourself looking through that trunk in complete astonishment as you ask yourself ... "where have all the years gone ? Where are those young people who thought they had so much time ?"

Where? Well, if you are very lucky, they are still very much around. Just look inside and you will find them. They may spend more time in a rocker than 'rockin' these days but the young people who built those memories are still a very real part of you. The facade may have faded and wrinkled with time but, if you allow them to, the memories will most assuredly keep you young so long as you live.

This is what love can do for those of us fortunate and wise enough to cherish and protect it through the years. It is a lifetime achievement which does not come without its share of pain along the way but nevertheless is absolutely worth every single moment which has gone by on your journey toward today.