I walked up to the vending machine and dip into my pocket for the required change and inserted it in the machine. Moments later a 3 musketeers bar falls to the bottom of the receptacle, and I easily remove it. Tearing open the wrapper the smooth chocolate and nougat passes through my lips and melts in my mouth.

Love, the painter thought, was a terribly vexing thing. Before he had met her, he fancied himself a master of his craft capable of creating perfection on the canvas; however, their meeting had humbled him. For in his eyes she was real perfection, and nothing he nor any other artist could create could ever quite compare to her.

In all of her days and nights, none were warmer, happier or more free than that intersection of life which brought her to share Aruba with him. The seed of true love was planted there in the sand, fertilized by the water and sprouted in their hearts, though most of the days and nights since, have been spent in remembrance, not celebration. Sometimes, though, all these years later, they still celebrate, and it still feels like true love.

They were soul mates---married just a year before a late diagnosis took him away. They were supposed to spend their lives together, she could not, would not accept this as their fate. She may not be able to spend her life with him, but she would lie next to him for all eternity.