No love is ever wasted. Its worth does not lie in reciprocity.
It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end it itself.
Love is the ultimate, the end. You love for love's own sake. It is not a means to anything else, it is its own end.
Perhaps love is essential because it's unnecessary.
Love is free; it does not depend on the desirability of its object, but loves for love's sake.
Love itself compensates for any diminishment.
