Jumping Fences, Love and Hazelnut Cake

As a young adult, I wanted to know about love, and why I didn’t experience it. I looked at the world around me and saw very little evidence for its existence. I was confused and worried, but undaunted, at nineteen years of age, I set off looking for answers. But not just any answers, I wanted answers that made sense, and that didn’t require a PhD or hard work.

Unlike the lost car keys we eventually find behind the couch, to me, love seemed profoundly AWOL and so difficult, that I began to suspect that finding it, would be easier trying to define it. I felt like a passenger on an express train that never stops at the station, where love is standing.

Making matters worse, now and again I experienced moments of profound warmth and love, but as quickly as these experiences came upon me, they faded, and I was once again back in the daily grind. In the course of my quest, something unusual and unpredictable happened; my train began to slow and life took on a very different complexion.

I was with my father when he died in 1997 and with my mother in 2008, the most remarkable people I ever met. My mother was the smartest person I've known and while they’re not here now, in the way they were before their death, I still experience my love for them, unchanged.