There isn't only one

My first love was my daddy.  I had an engagement ring that matched my mother's and I was so proud of it, so attached to it that when it slid down the drain while I was washing my hands I was totally devastated.  My father took the whole lavatory apart to retrieve it for me.  I was three.

My first friend was Paul, the big boy across the street.  He was four and had a stick horse I loved to ride.  We moved away shortly after I met him and I dreamed of him for a very long time.  There was quite a procession of loves after that.  My best friend all through school, the one I rode bikes with, played chess with, swam with.  The boys I went to proms and dances with.  My very own first dog that I named Ninna (my baby name) and who was really my first child. One of my college roommates.

I remember all the years I yearned for a child thinking it was never to be, and the unbelievable love I felt when I gazed at that tiny bundle who would be my first son.  I never could have believed how immense my feelings would be, how overwhelmingly in love I was and still am -- with him and his brother and sister.

There are so many kinds of love, but somehow the world seems to relegate them all to something less than the love between a man and a woman and that is a great loss to us all.

Love is love.  It may be great or small, fickle, or deep, but its strength is all that separates it from all the other kinds of love. 

Feelings that make the heart weep with joy, that make it stand up and sing when the beloved is near in thought, word, deed, or body, are no less valid just because they are not exclusively between a grown up man and a grown up woman.

If you have love in your life you are among the most blessed people on earth.  Cherish it.