“Eros..a romantic love for your mate. It’s inevitably a little selfish. You love your lover because there is something about your lover that moves you. It may be the way he talks or the way he walks or the personality or the physical beauty or the intellectual power– but it’s always based on that there’s something that attracts you.”

One year prior to “the 9/11” that transformed all of our lives, is the wedding anniversary of my mother and her husband. Mom classified him as a silver-haired fox (translation: a good-looking catch), a dating requirement. She was absolutely stunning with nary a wrinkle on her ivory skin which enhanced her deep blue eyes, chin-length bobbed red hair, and trim figure that turned many heads.

For 30 years, Mom was a perpetually single, conservative Southern Baptist, who never opened a newspaper unless it was to cut a coupon, and who read her Bible and Norman Vincent Peal quotes daily. He was a newly single left-winged liberal who enjoyed daily New York Times crosswords, literature my mother has never heard of, travel to countries she’s has never been to nor cared to go, wine she’s always refused to drink and was debt free.

He had a sparkle in his eyes that spoke of infatuated honeymoon-ish love whenever he would look at her. He adored her. Ignoring all their differences, they married anyway. The 12 year marriage evolved into something unconventional, proving he’s a man of sticking power. His secret? It began with Eros and grew into something more.