"The greatest thing, you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return..."

My niece turned one! She turned one and in the past year I have learned to love in a different way than I ever have before. She is amazing. She is amazing and she can't string two words together. She is amazing and she can't get her own food yet. She is amazing, but by all of the world's standards, as of yet, has very little to offer. She has not earned it by wealth, intelligence, service, or degrees, but our hearts are hers with no chance of ever being returned. I was thinking about this love and how strong it is. I was thinking as I drove away from her birthday weekend in Idaho that the worth of souls is indeed great. That one tiny person's worth is so great and means so much to me. I was thinking about how much we love her and how she is unique in our family, I wondered, if we loved each other as much as we could. I don't mean to say that by loving our niece we diminished our love for each other but this is an intense feeling and I was trying to figure out what made it so different. Why are children loved so much? I thought of some of the things that made them different than their older versions and came up with this: they need you for their every need and so require your love; they are innocent and so have not yet obtained a past or any negative traits...in other words they have received no demerits and so have not earned any reason for a lack of love; their potential is intoxicating and exciting and inspiring because no time is yet lost. I'm speaking now of course of children in general, not necessarily one's own because unconditional love is kind of exempt and my parents love for me is still pretty ridiculous. I heard a young woman talk about her career as a first grade teacher and her love of little children and their awe inspiring and, feeling the same, know that it is a feeling had by many for children and is a mystique that all children, yours or not, carry. I think that for the same reasons that children are loved, some adults are overlooked or unloved or forgotten about to be loved. Most adults don't need another to care for their physical needs. Time has passed and errors have been made so there are black marks on their records. And time has passed and some opportunities are gone and the adult seems to have less potential. It is my budding opinion that none of these things are as they appear and that the difference between adults and children is smaller than is thought. Though physically one may be able to provide for one's self, emotionally, that is not the case. I know many adults who are cold are hard and who seem to need no one who I would guess, and acutally know in some cases, need others to an even greater degree than most. As for the black marks on the past, in the religious views of many, including myself, there was a price paid to have those removed and so the done and atoned for cannot receive condemnation from another who is similarly patched and made whole. This too is maybe even a reason to love more. The potential we have to love another is great. Change is always an option and the need to be loved is always there and if we would look around and if we tried to see with clearer eyes, we would see the vulnerable, loveable children in the eyes of those twenty, thirty, sixty, or eighty years removed from their first birthdays. To hold them now may require a different understanding of how to hold them, but it is no less necessary than it was when those who loved them first could wrap their arms entirely around them.