Thoughts about Love on a Day of Love

By Tony Mussari
Copyright 2011
The Face of America Project
Mussari-Loftus Associates, LTD
Historical Images from the Library of Congress Digital Collection

On this Valentine’s Day, Kitch and I would like to share 10 thoughts about love.

In one respect, it has been a difficult time here with a number of anxious moments and a few disappointments, but we have interpreted everything that has happened since Kitch was diagnosed with breast cancer as an opportunity to learn and grow closer to one another.

On the other hand, we have experienced many positive moments. We have been blessed with beautiful acts of encouragement from friends, relatives, former students, and people we came to know and admire during our Face of America Journey. We are blessed with wonderful medical care and advice from Dr. Dan Kopen.

Kitch is ready to take the next step, 16 weeks of chemotherapy, and I am enjoying my new role as her caregiver. Recently we published two articles in our Face of America Blog. They will give you a better idea about what we have been doing during the past three weeks.

http://faceofamericawps.com/news/visiting-the-fox-chase-cancer-center/
http://faceofamericawps.com/news/going-home/

To everyone who took the time to pen a note, write an e-mail, send a card, order flowers, invite us for dinner, deliver homemade soup, or make an encouraging telephone call with an offer to help, we share the some of our favorite words of love as a Valentine’s Day expression of our gratitude for your kindness.

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton

Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about your love you will find that you are left holding only yourself. Leo Buscaglia

Love recognizes no barriers. It Jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. Maya Angelou

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Love is more than a noun – it is a verb; it is more than a feeling – it is caring, sharing, helping, sacrificing. William Arthur Ward

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a
habit. Peter Ustinof

Take away love and our earth is a tomb. Robert Browning

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost. G.K. Chesterton

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.Sophocles

There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.Mother Teresa

Happy Valentine’s Day,
Tony & Kitch