Every now and then I receive an email asking why I discontinued the 'The Unanswered Knock of Love' blog series.
Well, those blogs were never intended to be a series. I wrote on, and got interesting responses and requests for more - and so it continued.
What I learned from the interest and responses is more about 'OUR' yearning for love, to love and to be loved.
As 2012 ended and 2013 begins, most of us do some reflection and some looking forward.
 Some are  glad to have made it into the new year... as a friend who's Dad had an awful medical  scare... a couple of others I know  who's health continues to decline...my friend who called and said: " Louie, my wife...she just didn't wake up...she just didn't wake up...."  Lyndsey Hughes, who's brother was killed in an accident when he was traveling to  visit his sister who was ill with pancreatic cancer ....sis died a few months later. In this past year,  Alzheimer's left some folks with bodies that looked like their loved ones, but the love had vacated the body months ago. One only need visit  a nursing home to witness that sadness. I was visiting someone at a nursing home last Friday and on my way out , I saw an aid trying to get an obviously 'affected'  resident to eat some dinner. I thought I'd try and help. I engaged the elder in some conversation. When she turned towards me, I saw the other side of her face: deformed, absent an eye, living out her days with an hourly worker attempting to show her  some compassion. Yet this lady,well,   the living remains of her life, was able to get ME to smile as I fought back tears.
 Needless to say, OUR wars, overseas and in our cities, took many away - some completely, some leaving shells still here to suffer.
Yes, and of course, the great happiness of relationships, marriages and  healthy births. Yeah, as 2012 leaves and 2013 begins we realize, once again, how fleeting life is...so where is the love?

This New Years, as in past years, The Science Fiction Channel, now hipply called SyFy ran 24 hours of The Twilight Zone TV episodes. One of my favourites was just on an hour ago: A Stop At Willoughby A synopsis reads: Tired of his miserable job and wife, a businessman starts dreaming on the train each night, about an old, idyllic town called Willoughby. Soon he has to know whether the town is real and fancies the thought of seeking refuge there.
When he finally 'reaches' Willoughby you hear the band playing Beautiful Dreamer, a Stephen Foster song from the mid 1800s

.
Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world, heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away!
Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life's busy throng,
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!


Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea,
Mermaids are chanting the wild lorelei;
Over the streamlet vapors are borne,
Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.
Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,
E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;
Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Life and health can be fleeting, love needn't be.
My wish for us all in 2013, Let's be beautiful dreamers and do-ers..... and never leave the knock of love...unanswered.