If Google doesn't map it it's not a place on Earth

In the immortal words of Tiffany, "They say in heaven love comes first" (which I guess makes today's song of the day Heaven Is a Place on Earth). Unfortunately, all to often, heaven is not a place on earth and love does not come first. For many people life gets in the way of love. In life, if love did come first a lot of other things would have to be compromised. Where you want to live, how many (if any) kids you want to have, religion, who is going to be the bread winner, how much sex is enough, who's family to spend the holidays with, where to go on vacation...it seems like every day would present dozens of new things you might have to compromise on.

Most people realize this and when they're single they try to predict what things will be "deal breakers". As a single person you think of things you want in a mate and things you couldn't live with. Many people stick to these guns no matter what, but a lot of people find there's a little more wiggle room in the rules they've written for themselves than they thought. They meet someone who has none of the things they thought they were looking for and/or all of the things they thought they could never live with but they can't help loving that person anyway.

My great-grandfather was a devout catholic. A true believer who thought that he could buy salvation for all his family by donating to the church. When my mom and I went through a bunch of his old papers, searching for clues about our genealogy, we found records of all the money he spent and who's souls he was trying to buy into heaven with each of those donations. We also found my great-grandmother's catechism book. It appears that she had at least planned to convert to Catholicism for him (though I don't recall if we found record of her confirmation or not). I don't know much about them but I can only assume that they loved each very much because for a devout catholic man and Jewish divorcee to end up married there had to be some compromising.

It seems like, maybe, she was the one to do most of the compromising and maybe, it is from her that I've inherited my sense that love conquers all. It wouldn't be the only thing I get from her. At age sixteen, I saw a picture of her and it was the first time I'd ever looked at a photograph of anyone in my family and seen myself reflected back. I suppose it would stand to reason that I get more than my looks from her. Unfortunately she died young and neither I, nor my mom, ever had a chance to meet her. In fact, even my grandmother, who was only three when she died, barely knew her. I asked my mother recently what she died from...I had always assumed it was childbirth for some reason, but it turns out she had an enlarged heart. I'm not making that up. I know it seems like I must be because of the metaphor (i.e. she had such a big heart, she loved so much, that she was willing to make whatever compromise she had to for it), but I'm really not making it up.

I don't know if I get my capacity for love from my great-grandmother, but where ever it comes from, even though heaven isn't always (or even often) a place on Earth, for me love does come first. If I love someone I'll always find a way to compromise.