The main reason our world is falling apart at the seams stems not from the greed we have witnessed for the past 15 years. Although, that has helped it along.

It’s the lack of love.

Without love, everything falls apart, from the family, to the local, state and federal governments, to global relations. The purer the love, the stronger the foundation, no matter what we build.

Look around the globe. Wars, the threat of wars, countries building military strength, including weapons that could blow our whole planet to pieces, are all around us.

At no other time in our history is the world so unsafe as it is today. From the global warming, to the waste in our environment, to starvation, genocide, the major illnesses wiping out whole socialites, to the inequity of economics, to uneven justice, to murder based on religion, to voting for or against based solely on skin color, the world is so topsy turvy and out of control I don’t know if we could save ourselves even if we really, really tried.

I don’t know why a simple thing as love gets thrown aside so often. It is the best thing you can give to your kids because they will take that and build their own families, their own solid foundations. But when I look around, I see the lack of love severely damaging our world.

When I was very young I had a dog - a mutt - whose love for me transcended everything. When I was in need, Peanuts was there for me, with no preconditions. It didn’t take me long to figure out if she could give that to me, the least I could do was give back to her.

We moved west from New York in 1954 and my new stepmother did not want to take Peanuts with us. I cried when we left Peanuts in the care of my married sister. Without Peanuts, I lost the sense of love. I drifted into a black and empty void into a period I call my dark ages.

Two summers later, we drove back to New York for a visit and the closer we got to our previous home the more anxious I got. How would Peanuts greet me?

Peanuts was 16 years old and going blind. As we pulled into the driveway, I jumped out of the car, raced toward the porch where Peanuts was curled up on the porch. I crossed the street and as I did I called out to her.

At first, Peanuts didn’t stir. Then she turned her head toward my voice, jumped up on her feet, turned and ran as fast as I ever saw her run. Peanuts cleared the porch and jumped into my arms.

Tears flowed as Peanuts snuggled up against me and mothered me with love, the love that I had missed.

Love was the foundation builder in my early life. My mother showed her love by caring for us in every way possible. We, my sister and brothers, were her life and there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for us, even if it was to discipline us when we needed it.

I always have felt she worked herself to death for us, dying in 1953 at the young age of 48. I still miss her, and the love she showed by how she protected me and cared for me.

My father had his own way of building a loving foundation. He did it not by words, but by actions. Two stand out. One time when I was kicked out of the house by his wife, he searched for me and found me.

Dad was not a man of many words and after awhile he asked me where I was going. I said I didn’t know. He then said this: “Well, wherever you go, I’m going too.”

It broke my heart. I started crying. I knew I couldn’t take him away from his marriage.

Finally, he said, “Why don’t we go home and get something to eat?”

So we did.

Dad was a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy. A big bear of a man with a gentle soul, he dabbled in everything, including starting his own electrical business after retiring from a 37-year career with Mobil Oil.

I was (and still am) a bumbling idiot when it came to anything. I could change a light bulb - after a few failed tries, usually, and could use a hammer to hit a nail three out of four times (my thumb was my favorite target), but that was about it.

Dad, of course, knew this. He would ask me along at times when he had jobs putting electricity into a new house, and I always thought he dragged me along so he could have company because he certainly wasn't going to get a lot of good help out of me. Maybe to pull a electric line through holes in studs once in a while, or to fetch a hammer for him.

In the last seven years of his life, his health started to go. So they decided to move back to New York, leaving me alone.

Before he left, we had a get-together and his last gesture to me was to go out in the garage and come back in the house with his prized tool box, with all his favorite tools in it. He wanted me to have it.

He knew I wasn’t like him. I had no more use for his tools and that tool box than an extra thumb or two to use as targets for a hammer, but I instantly knew the deal: He was giving to me the one thing that meant the most to him. That tool box was his life, it held his essence inside of it, and his giving of it was his way to pass his deep love on to me.

It’s been almost 40 years since he gave me his tool box, and I still have it, with almost all the same tools inside of it that where in it when he gave it to me. Every time I see it, touch it or think about it, I feel his love. It has sustained me in dark times.

I feel the same way about Peanuts. There aren’t many days that go by without me thinking about Peanuts. I have named some things after her and as long as I live, she will not be forgotten.

I hope I have showed and given that same power of love to my children. I know I have tried, because without love, emptiness follows, as much of the world reveals.

So if you don’t do anything else, give a little love as you journey along through life.

Have a great month.

You are loved.