Long-Lost, Well-Loved Essay

When I was in high school, I came across a beautifully-written essay that was an expansion of the definition of "Unconditional Love."  I painstakingly retyped that essay back then and carried it around school in my binder.  It's typical for teen-aged girls to daydream romantic notions, and I was no different.  At that time, I thought this essay was the most romantic thing I had ever read, in addition to being filled with beautiful words—and we've established in previous posts that, by this point in my life, I had already become a lexophile.

As I've grown up, I've thought back to that essay many times, wishing I hadn't lost that single typed copy and wishing I could piece together enough of the words from memory to find it again using an internet search engine.  I've grown to learn that the words and sentiments I once thought to be so romantic are so very much more than romantic; indeed, they are words that can be applied to our friends, our families, and the people around us in our everyday lives.  There are so many kinds of love, and I've come to understand that the overwhelming majority of these do not have anything at all to do with romance.

Today, I finally remembered the right combination of words and was able to locate that essay again!  I'm so happy to be able to reread these words, and fill in the gaps in my memory.  The words are as beautiful as they were to me some 15 years ago, perhaps even more so now that I have learned to see their deeper meaning.

In order to never again lose this essay, and also to share with my readers, I've decided to post the work here in its entirety, with proper credit given to the author whose name I never knew until an hour ago.

What a lovely world it would be if we all learned to apply this definition of "Unconditional Love" to our interactions with the people in our lives, both those we hold dear and those whose paths we cross only briefly.