A nurse wrote about having removed some stitches from an elderly man who was anxious to keep another appointment. She assumed it was with one of the doctors in the clinic, but it turned out that he wanted to have breakfast with his wife in the adjacent nursing home. She asked if his wife would get upset if he was late, but he told her she wouldn’t because she had Alzheimer’s disease, and hadn’t recognized him for five years. She said, ‘And you still go to see her every morning even though she doesn’t know you.’ He smiled and said, ‘She doesn’t know me, but I still know her.’

She learned from that old man that true love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be. The happiest people may not have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.