How I Came to Understand Love as a Daily Choice

From the time I was young, I found myself looking for Love. Not because I didn’t have Love surrounding me, but because I was curious about it. I noticed where Love was present, how it worked, and the difference it made in people’s lives.

For two decades, I worked in the field of child abuse prevention. When people hear the words child abuse, they sometimes stop listening before they hear the most important word: prevention.

What I discovered was that, at its heart, preventing child abuse was about helping families learn to love and care for one another. It was about helping them make Love the cornerstone of their everyday lives, developing the skills, support, and confidence to create homes where everyone could thrive.

My work with the Alabama Children’s Trust Fund took me across the state, into cities, small towns, schools, agencies, and family homes. I served as a field director, program director, and consultant, working alongside people dedicated to strengthening families and breaking cycles of abuse.

One visit, in particular, has stayed with me.

I was visiting a family living in a mobile home in one of Alabama’s poorest counties. Much of the flooring had deteriorated, and rats had made their way into the kitchen sink. As they moved among the dishes, I kept jumping, half expecting one to leap into my lap!

But what I remember most vividly isn’t the condition of that home.

It’s the Love I witnessed there.

The young mother had been working at night and was asleep beside her tiny newborn baby. The grandmother welcomed us into the home. She had been sweeping the floor, even though much of that floor was gone.

Everything I saw told me that this family was doing its best to protect and care for that precious child. They were working, nurturing, and doing what they could with the resources they had.

A home visitor and parent educator was coming regularly, helping the family build new skills, strengthen their relationships, and create a safer, more supportive environment for their baby.

I remember wishing I could bring every member of the Alabama Legislature into that home. Our prevention programs were funded primarily through the state, and I wanted those decision-makers to witness what I had witnessed: a family deserving of support, working toward a better future, and people coming alongside them to help make that possible.

That experience was one of many that shaped my understanding of Love.

It wasn’t a single moment of revelation. It was something I came to understand over years of working with families in circumstances as different as the places they called home.

Love was always present, but not always known.

I began to see that Love was more than an emotion or something we hoped would happen to us. Love could be a conscious choice. It could be practiced, strengthened, expressed, and brought into everyday life through our actions.

And when families were supported in making those choices, they could begin to change patterns that had sometimes existed for generations.

My work was not simply about preventing something harmful. It was about helping people discover and strengthen something life-giving.

That understanding became one of the foundations of The Lovist Handbook: A Guide for Living Love.

Today, I call someone who consciously chooses to live, promote, and share Love a Lovist.

And after all these years, I am still looking for Love, noticing where it is present, and discovering new ways to practice it.

Because living Love isn’t something we accomplish once and for all.

It’s a choice we get to make again and again.

Choosing Love Through Divorce, Family, and Loss

When I look back on my first marriage, I remember so many wonderful experiences. We shared laughter, adventures, meaningful moments, and the joy of raising our two sons together.

I also remember the small experiences and growing awareness that gradually led me toward a different life. I felt increasingly drawn to the mountains of Alabama, to new friendships, new relationships, and to discovering more about who I was becoming.

Eventually, I knew that my marriage needed to end.

Divorce is rarely easy, even when we know it is the right decision. There are disappointments, sadness, uncertainty, and often a great deal of hurt.

But I knew one thing very clearly: I didn’t want to go to court and fight with my husband.

Instead, we chose mediation.

We found an excellent mediator who listened carefully to both of us and helped us understand where we needed to compromise. Together, we worked toward an agreement that respected each of our needs.

Looking back, I see that decision as an act of Love.

It didn’t erase the pain of ending our marriage, but it helped create a foundation for something that would become extraordinarily important to both of us: continuing to be parents, friends, and family.

By then, I had moved to the mountains of Alabama, where I owned several acres of forest and a little cabin tucked into the woods.

I remember walking that land every day, crying as I grieved the ending of my marriage.

For an entire year, the tears came.

I didn’t try to stop them or judge myself for feeling so much sadness. I understood that grief was part of my healing. I could choose Love and still feel heartbroken. One did not cancel out the other.

And slowly, life began opening in new directions.

On Christmas Eve in 2002, a man named Ted drove down my long driveway through the woods.

That Christmas Eve marked the beginning of a relationship that has continued to invite both of us to open our hearts—not only to each other, but to our past marriages, our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and now the wonderful news that we will soon be great-great-grandparents!

But one of the most beautiful parts of our story is what happened with my first husband, Andy.

Rather than allowing divorce to divide our family, we continued choosing ways to remain connected.

We went on family vacations together with our children and grandchildren. We cared for grandchildren together. We shared accommodations for family weddings, and when Ted and I traveled through Birmingham, we often stayed at Andy’s house.

And something wonderful happened between Ted and Andy.

From the moment they met, they just got each other.

They genuinely enjoyed each other’s company and became good friends.

Over the years, our family grew into something that might have looked unusual to other people, but felt entirely natural to us.

We were family.

Not because we had avoided hurt or difficulty, but because we continued choosing connection, kindness, and care.

When Andy developed multiple myeloma, those choices took on an even deeper meaning.

He wanted Ted and me to accompany him to a hospital meeting where information about his illness and treatment would be shared. We visited him as often as we could during his hospitalization and recovery.

Following a bone marrow transplant, Andy suffered a devastating fall that left him paralyzed and dependent on a ventilator. When it became clear that he was unlikely to recover, he made the heartbreaking decision to discontinue life support.

He asked Ted and me, along with our friend Jane, to come to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to join the family gathered around him as he approached the end of his life.

And we went.

I think about that often.

The man I had once married, the father of our children, had remained part of our lives through all the changes and challenges that followed our divorce. And Ted, the man who had become my husband, was there too.

There was room for all of us in that circle of Love.

Looking back, I can see how, over and over again, we collectively chose Love rather than separation, bitterness, or resentment.

Was it always easy? Of course not.

We experienced hurt feelings, disagreements, sadness, and all the complicated emotions that come with being human.

But we learned that we didn’t have to make those feelings our permanent home.

The hurts were real, but they weren’t where we wanted to live.

We wanted to live in Love.

That meant practicing forgiveness, accepting one another’s imperfections, making room for change, and remembering to laugh together.

It meant recognizing that families don’t always look the way we originally imagined they would.

And it meant understanding that the ending of a marriage doesn’t necessarily have to mean the ending of Love.

I don’t believe being a Lovist exempts us from painful experiences. Life will continue to bring unexpected changes, losses, and challenges.

But I do believe that we can choose how we meet those experiences.

For me, learning to see life through the lens of Love has made all the difference.

Love doesn’t make every experience easy. It gives us another way to live through it.