What matters most, after food and shelter,
is love: presence, listening, and being heard.
Family celebrations, holidays and anniversaries,
offer joy and, sometimes, the most exquisite
pain
with loss: death, estrangement, abandonment.

We humans flee pain and seek joy, hungry
even for artificial joy, artificial solace that
we eat, drink, and smoke.
The paradise of family and friends gathering
warms us, gives us joy, teaches us
our need for the richness of loving.

In the darkness of absence, in our aloneness,
we humans twist and turn
reluctantly facing the opportunity of recognizing
what we had, what we need, what we can seek:
the delight of trusted ones and hugging,
the warmth of knowing ourselves as human.