Once there was a child.  Like most children, she was loved.  One day she would learn, that love was not enough.  It was not enough to keep a family together, or keep from being hungry.  It was not enough, to keep a firm roof over your head.  These were the things that came from stability.  Love was not enough to make your parents slow to anger, or keep from yelling at you.  These were the things that stemmed from patience; but even with these challenges to face, this child learned some very important things.

Blowing dandelions:  Open wide.  Don't breathe it in!  Close your eyes and make a wish.  Now blow.  Open those eyes.  Watch how they glimmer and glide.  Counting stars:  Only the twinkling ones!  Recite "Twinkle Twinkle little Star."  Raise your finger to touch that diamond in the sky.

This child grows older.  She can see that her parents aren't perfect.  But she sees hope that love can exist, by watching the older people around her.  Her aunt and uncle, high-school sweethearts.  When she reaches her teens, while they are celebrating their 25th anniversary, she notices that they still act like her peers she sees dating at school.  She sees her uncle's devotion, even as her first love changes his mind.  She sees her grandparents that were married for fifty years, that loved one another since they were children.

This young woman is alone.  She has issues with her own sense of worth.  She is blind to the affections of those that could love her.  She is used to get a compliment, only to be torn down in the next moment.  She carefully guards her heart.  She wants to love and be loved.  But can she trust?

In my case, yes I did.  I married another from a broken home, just as determined to make things work as me.  We had three beautiful children together.  We watched my grandparents almost make it to their 66th year before my grandmother passed away.  It was then, that I no longer believed that love could last forever.

That little girl from long ago, she used to love watching love story cartoons.  Disney made them all.  Growing up, she noticed something she never paid attention to before.  "And they lived happy ever after.  The end."  From that point on, the couple was frozen in time.  We, on the other hand, are dust, and to dust we will return.  To love someone forever?  It can't happen in this world.  Whether somebody gives you their last dying breath, or simply changes their mind, in one form or another, somebody is going to get left behind.

I have no regrets of my life.  I will continue to love.  But these young friends from "Finding Alaska"?  They will face the hardest lesson of all:  Taking off those rose-colored glasses.  Seeing the adults that raised you as the imperfect, broken people they are.  Trying not to judge them, and maybe learn to forgive them.  And maybe blowing wishes, and counting stars.