Who Says Money Doesn't Buy Happiness

Love.
There are a lot of different kinds out there.
Never seems to be enough though, right?

Some people are easy to love. Honestly, I think most people are really easy to love. The older I get, the more I realize that I seem to have a gift for loving others. I can think of only one person really that I don't love. Or at least I didn't think I loved him. He makes me crazy with his smooth talk and salesman attitude. He walked into a party last summer and I had to turn away so I could roll my eyes in private. Eventually we crossed paths. After 30 seconds I realized, yeah, I kind of love him a little, too. Not enough to keep talking to him. I didn't want to press my luck or anything. I moved on to someone else and left the party with warm fuzzies for SmoothTalker.

I most recently have fallen in love with an 81 year old man that hangs out at 7-11. He gets up early and collects cans. I get up early and collect myself. With the help of a double gulp. We have been friends for about oh...8 months. He sometimes brings me pictures of his kids (who are old enough to be my parents). He hugs me, too. All this by 7am. Life's little gifts, I say.

There are no words to explain my attachment to my children. The connection between whatever word I could use would have a tenuious relationship to the true emotion. I won't bore you or even try to explain it. But it's pretty great.

Someone once told me divine love is best described as, "the Redeemer's love He feels for the redeemed while in the act of redeeming them."
Sounded like someone was being cheeky until I really thought about it.  I wondered if I had ever felt like that for someone.
Years and years ago, I heard of a family who had just lost their 2 year old to the flu. A heartbreaking story not unlike many other sad stories we all hear. There was a fund set up to help pay for the funeral costs. I felt inclined to help. After a few quick phone calls, some friends and I had collected about $500. I called the funeral home. Tears, donations, tears, thank yous. I was gutsy enough to ask if there was more needed for this small, very young family. The financial burden of a death was something they were not prepared for and it ruined me to think this couple was going to have to make monthly payments on their child's casket and tombstone.
I called my husband. I was so emotional it was difficult to speak. I asked him, my darling unemployed-at-the-time-husband, if we could do more. I was uncomfortable leaving things as they were. With his consent, I called the funeral home and paid the balance on their account.
I still cry when I think about it, all these years later. Even right now. And I think I am so easily overcome because with that offering on my part, I felt and got to be a part of something Divine.
That chunk of money has brought me a peace and a joy that no other trinket or bobble has given me. I don't think money is the key to giving love. Just worked out that way here.
My husband won't even talk about it. He even told me so when we did it. To never mention it again. He feels like it cheapens the experience. Maybe I've just wrecked it all with this one and only public admission.
But I wonder what it would be like if we all went around giving pure, selfless, needed love. Not giving because I want to give it, but giving because someone needs it.
I hope I can feel that way again. If one act of kindness can fill years with an indescribable happiness, what would two acts do? Three?
I hope to find out.