What is love? For something so important and so basic to human existence it is sorely inadequate that the English language has only one word. In the Greek language there are at least eight words to represent the different kinds of love. In this relatively new millennium where "progress" is touted as enlightenment and we perceive our world as more advanced than ever before, it's actually rather pathetic that we haven't evolved enough or advanced our language in a way that would produce a better selection of words to represent the diversity of feelings currently encapsulated in the single word "love." After all, we've had zero problem creating new words to represent all of the other innovations of modern culture in the 2020s: Selfie, Google it and sexting are just a few examples (and point to the turn towards self-gratification and instant information to boot). C'mon people! We can do better than this.

Last February my life changed.  My dear sweet friend had just received the visit no parent ever hopes to receive—the one from two uniform clad military service members arriving to tell you that on behalf of the United States of America, we regret to inform you…