Thanks, Emily, that touched me. I have a son with whom I had a great, loving relationship with. We never had one argument. He met a girl and his whole head turned around. He turned against my husband and me. I told him, “You couldn’t have loved us and treated us like you did.” That only made him more hostile and distant. I wonder if he would come if I were on my death bed. Does it matter by then? I lost my loving son. My husband even begged him to have some mercy on us because ‘Mom has emotional issues’ (It was his wedding he made it unpalatable for us to attend, seriously). All we asked of him was one small concession that would allow us to stand there without breaking down in tears, but he said, “No special treatment for MI”: Is that love? WTH happened? Loving son, meets girl, converts to hateful person.

There was a motivational speaker I heard once who said love was like a jar where you put coins. Every time you do something loving, in goes a coin. Every time you do something the opposite, out goes a coin. What you have left in the jar is what you feel.

But then there was the example of my son where it was a lifetime of love and one outrageously unloving about face put a halt to the whole relationship.