When did I first recognize love?

This is a contest for Real Simple magazine and the question is so thought provoking to me. We don't know what love is when we are children and we don't know what love is when we are adolescents, overcome with hormones and think we really love that cute boy sitting next to us. And love isn't necessarily about a romantic relationship.

Love is the way my grandfather took care of my grandmother when she suffered from dementia. He took care of her with patience and understanding, never raised his voice. He died just 4 months after her.

Love is the way my uncle devoted every Sunday afternoon to my mother after my dad died, going over her household bills, even though he had his own young family. He was the person I called first when her mental illness took hold. I was amazed that he wept at my Aunt's funeral and said how much he missed my mom and now would miss his other sister. I thought he took care of my mom because of obligation, I learned differently that day. He saw through her illness and self-medication to the dynamo she was inside.

Love is the faithfulness of a beloved dog who struggled to get to his feet to greet his master just one last time as he was dying.

Has it really been a year?

I haven't written in a year or more - wow! My life has taken twists and turns and some of those twists have not been in my best interest and some have. I am learning how to cope with someone else's addiction and find it is an additional layer of stress that I'm feeling my way through. There are days when I forget as the addiction takes a back seat for a long stretch of time and there are days when the addiction may rear it's ugly head and all I can is shake my head and watch the implosion. I hear the term "co-dependent" and you don't want to be that person and so you have to take the 12 steps seriously and the first step - I cannot control anyone else's behavior is probably the one that most applies. You just have to sit back and watch the train wreck and then pick up the survivors. Enough of that - new post.