They asked me how I knew...

There is a song I like very much.

It's an old tune. Was popular long before I was born.

But I love it. I love the yearning in it. I love the feel of it. I love the images that dance in your head when you hear it. I love everything about it.

They asked me how I knew my true love was true? I of course replied something here inside cannot be denied.

"Smoke Gets In Your Eyes." The Platters. 1959. From an era when pop singers could actually sing.

Here's what bothers me, though. One part of the song is pure rubbish.

"They said someday you'll find all who love are blind."

Nonsense. I know where this sentiment comes from. And yet I reject it.

That line was born out of the ash heap of heartache. And that, folks, does indeed cloud our judgment. Gets smoke in our eyes, so to speak.

We throw the word "love" around a lot, tossing it to and fro like an old baseball that gets left outside in the yard.

We usually mean it when we say it. But sometimes we don't. Often, we're afraid to say it. Sometimes we're afraid to experience it. Other times we confuse it for infatuation, or, worse, lust.

But here's the deal. All who love aren't blind. For, in order to really love, you first have to see.

I'm not an expert. There is much I don't understand. But here's something I do know:

Loving someone is much more than feelings. It's a whole lot more than a song heard on the radio or a scene from an old movie you remember from late night TV.

Love is more than holding hands in the park. It is more than losing one's breath at the sight of your beloved. It's more than all those Karen Carpenter ballads put together. It's more than the butterflies that come when you look into those eyes.

The Good Book says love is patient and love is kind. And it is. It also, in its purest form, is free of confusion, awkwardness and doubt.

You know that kind of relationship, I'm sure. You work at it, put all you have into it, push the accelerator closer to the floor and still can't get out of first gear.

That isn't love.

But when it all falls into place, when the comfort level is such that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, oh, now that is something else entirely, my friends.

My prayer is that you have known or will know this kind of love -- when you feel like you've known each other forever. When the feelings are pure. When the connections are deep and real.

When you know beyond a shadow of a doubt you can't live without it. When giving your all doesn't even seem like enough. When the needs of another outweigh your own.

When all you want is to fulfill those needs. When she matters most and you don't care too much about yourself anymore.

When you wake up at 3 a.m. hoping she's getting a good night's sleep. When the realization hits, if you'll forgive a moment of sentimentality, that the world will never again be the same since she spoke your name.

That certainly isn't all the definitions of what love is. No, not even close.

Mere words can't describe it. At least mine can't. It would take the talent of Shakespeare. Or maybe David Gates:

"If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint you? The words would never show the you I've come to know."

Love can be found in many places -- in a child's smile, wrapped inside a warm hug, hanging one long ago Friday on Galgotha's hill, or zig-zagging back and forth in the enthusiastic wagging of a dog's tail.

It's things you can't explain and things that take a lifetime to know. It's all this and heaven, too.

But what it most certainly isn't is blind.