HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE....ALONE? MANY PARENTS KNOW THAT FEELING.

Have you ever been in love alone? If you are human, most of us have been at one time or another. To many of us that have suffered physical or emotional abuse, the alone factor may be the roughest to overcome. I thought of this the other day when I was speaking to an "older gal". I consider them older only if they are older that I am, which is close to ancient. She told me she ran away from home as a young teenager as she grew tired of the physical, emotional and mental stress of watching her step-father abuse her mother, whom she loved, but loved herself more when he came after her. She turned out well, being taken in by an older couple who cared for her; lied about her age, and truly gave her a chance in life. She has never looked up her original family, and doesn't want to. She made in through life with her own grit and determination, of which she stands tall. I recall that, along with my own mother who didn't like Mothers Day. I came to appreciate that when I found that "Mothers Day" should only be for her own mother, for which she loved and gave the attached crayon note to her mother about a hundred years ago. In reflection, I thought of some of the people all around us that are in love....and do that alone. The other person doesn't know or care to acknowledge it or they have passed. That is the sad feature of today's story of life. A few years ago, I had a dream about a gal I was in love with....alone! She was a bar maid in a western town in Montana. I got in my vehicle and headed for Montana in search of this woman I was in love with, but she lived 150 years ago, so I hadn't met her. I didn't find her, but directed to a woman by the name of Anne Seagraves, who I  became acquainted with. She acted like I wasn't the first dusty cowboy to look for their own "Soiled Dove" of yesteryear. I was smitten by her knowledge and purchased each of her western history books. She knew well my love of that gal with the seamy side of life who came west in the late 1800's to find fortune, but settled for poverty and pain. My love of life was caught in a web over which she had no control. All in all, I found that being "In Love Alone" was not all that bad. As a kid, I accepted the proposition that clean clothes magically appeared in my closet for school, and food mystically found itself on the table. After sitting by the open fire to keep us warm, we scuffled off to bed, never thinking it was our mother that made the fire in the kitchen; cooked and worked a full day. Later in life, I found that love in marriage can be great, but often we jump in to it and later find the beautiful dream is over, but then leap again. However, the love of a mother for her kid....never ends....it lasts forever, as does the search for the "soiled love" for me. First two photos are of "Little Sure Shot" Annie Oakley, then my mothers note to her mother of a century ago.