The Price of Love

Today in the Albuquerque Journal on the front page is an articule about a case before District Court Judge Clay Campbell where he had to place a value on a case of malpractice. Judge Campbell quoted Mark Twain’s words, “To get the full value of joy, you must have someone with whom to divide it.” In the court system judges must often set monetary amounts on cases so as to make the victims whole. Still I don’t think for one minute Judge Campbell would ever attempt to place a value on love or marriage. A happily married man himself, I think he wanted to take the time to explain to both sides that he had a keen understand of how important long term relationships are and that even though he had to assign an amount to this case that it did not reflex his value on a life well lived or a long happy marriage.

Long marriages and friendships are something that should be truly value among all else. I come from a family where long term relationships are very common. My grandparents, my parents and my bother all have or had long term marriages. I would like to say that I had a long term relationship but I appear to have out live my husband and friends still I understand the value of a long term relationship. I once told a friend that relationships change over time but for a relationship to last one must be committed to working through the bad times as well as the good times. You don’t always get along with the people in your life and sometimes you have to remind them that they need to make time to spend with you even when their schedules are busy. Communication is the key to a long term relationships of any kind. Sometimes just talking about nothing is more important then not talking at all and sometime you need to remind people of that fact. At any rate long term relationships often take work and commitment from both individuals.

In the field of politics long term relationships are often very rare and you never know when one will develop or even if it will last past the next election. My parents always warned me from ever getting to close to a politician for fear that I would get my heart broken and I do respect their view on that issue. Too often the field encourages candidates to act nicely toward supporter until they reach the goal that they have set for themselves and after that your usefulness is at an end and you move on to the next candidate. I think most people understand that working relationship when it comes to candidates. Both the candidate and the activist often even forget the other person’s name over time. The nature of the beast as it were.

Still it was very considerate of Judge Campbell to take the time to express his view on marriage and long term relationships so that the family would feel that he had taken that relationship into consideration before making his judgment. Judge Campbell is clearly a very thoughtful judge.