To be loved. To be lovable.

On the day my son was born, I loved him. Really, the word love is not strong enough or broad enough to cover my feelings for him. I could muse about how I loved him even before he was born. That would miss my point.

The fact is that my son entered the world loved and lovable. Just by being born he was worthy of love. I didn’t gaze at him and wonder what he would do that would make him a worthy human being. I loved him. I believe that’s true of all of us. We were all worthy of love just by being born. We were all lovable when we entered the world.

And if we can concede that this is true, I have just one question: when does it stop being true? Maybe a better question is why do we tell ourselves that it does?